The Greatest Skating Race: A WWII Story from the Netherlands ANNOTATION
During World War II in the Netherlands, a ten-year-old boy's dream of skating in a famous race allows him to help two children escape to Belgium by ice skating past German soldiers and other enemies.
FROM THE CRITICS
Children's Literature - Susan Hepler, Ph.D.
A fictionalized story set in World War II is well served in Louise Borden's first-person narrative combined with Niki Daly's subdued and wintry palette of the Dutch landscape. A young skater named Piet has always admired the first man to skate the route now immortalized in the "Eleven Towns Race" that takes place in the Netherlands. He suddenly has a chance to use his skating skills to accompany two children whose father has been taken by the Germans. Their mother is sending them to relatives for safety and has asked him to skate the canals with them from Sluis (rhymes with voice) across the Belgian border to relatives. The dramatic story shows Piet's courage, his ability to avoid detection, and the ways the children keep up their spirits on the long skate (the record for the 200 kilometer race is slightly under thirteen hours). Although there is no suggestion that Piet's accomplishment is based on a real event, it reads like one complete with an "After the War" section and readers would have been well-served by a note saying exactly what is real and what is made up. There are, however, informative short historical notes, both on the race itself, and on skates and skate making, which end the story. Daly uses reddened browns and grays and the vast panorama of the flattened landscape and canal routes to create a fine sense of place. This book belongs alongside other picture book treatments of World War II incidents, such as Candace Fleming's Boxes for Katje, which is also set in the Netherlands, as an introduction to the period for upper elementary and middle school studies. It is also an excellent companion to novels personal courage in World War II, such as Lois Lowry's Numberthe Stars. 2004, McElderry Books, Ages 9 to 12.
Kirkus Reviews
One winter day in 1941, in a German-occupied Dutch town called Sluis, ten-year-old Piet Janssen's ice-skating skills are put to a dangerous test. It's WWII, and Piet's schoolmate Johanna Winkelman's father has been arrested for espionage. Since his friend and her brother are no longer safe at home, Piet must help them escape to their aunt's house in Brugge, skating over icy canals and outsmarting German soldiers until the three cross the Belgian border. The story of this perilous, bitterly cold flight-a race against time-is told in Piet's earnest first-person voice and formatted like poetry, with frequent, often inexplicable line breaks. Themes of bravery, strength, and tradition echo throughout-like the "Swisssshh, swissshhh" of the children's skates. Daly's lovely illustrations, complete with rosy-cheeked innocents and autumnal tones, effectively evoke a sense of time and place in this slow-moving (but nonetheless moving) tale of a child's wartime heroism. (information about the Elfstedentocht, author's note on the history of skating, map) (Picture book. 8-11)
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