A Day on Skates

This is a book which mothers and fathers will sit up to finish, after the protesting child has been dragged firmly off to bed. Nobody who is once well along in this book will let the fortunes of Evert and Afke – and even more particularly, perhaps, of Simon – rest in uncertainty until tomorrow…. For this is more than just the charming account of certain Dutch customs, a description of what happens in the winter in Holland when there is ice on the canals; this is a good story.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay (1934 Foreword)

This is the 2007 Commemorative edition. With this 1935 Newbery Honor book, author/illustrator Hilda van Stockum made her debut into the world of children’s books. Within its pages she adroitly captures Dutch life as it was in the early part of this century.

Seven full-cover paintings and numerous line drawings enliven this Commemorative edition.