Winter in Wartime

"Winter in Wartime by Jan Terlouw was not exactly published in 2019; it first came out in 1972 as Oorlogswinter , and was one of my favourite books as a child. But this is the first time it’s been translated into English, part of a fabulous initiative by Pushkin Children’s to publish classics of children’s literature from other countries in the English language. War in Winter has been nominated by my 13-year old son as his favourite book of the year. He’s interested in war anyway (his favourite Christmas present last year was Battles that Changed History ) but this is a work of fiction. Set in the Netherlands during World War II, it’s about a young boy and the things he gets up to during the German occupation. Jan Terlouw, now in his 80s, based it partly on his own experiences, but the book has all the nice plot twists you expect from fiction. Also, as a children’s book written nearly half a century ago about a period of Dutch history that the country still struggles to come to terms with, I thought it might be a bit black-and-white: but it actually isn’t."