Winter in Wartime

A gripping and fast-paced adventure story about one boy's life-threatening mission to support the secret resistance in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, based on the author's own childhood in Holland during World War II.

It's the winter of 1944-45, and Michiel's country has been at war since he was eleven. Now he's fifteen, and his country is under Nazi occupation, including the town where Michiel lives and where his father is the mayor. No longer able to attend school, Michiel spends his days running urgent errands on his bicycle, avoiding Allied bombers and German soldiers alike. Then one day, his friendship with Dirk, the neighbor's older son and a member of the secret underground, involves him in the care of a wounded British pilot. When a German soldier is found murdered and the townspeople are blamed for his death, Michiel's already-risky mission turns life-threatening. Winter in Wartime is a fast-paced and exciting novel, which has never been out of print in the Netherlands since it was first published, nearly fifty years ago. Based on the author's own boyhood in wartime Holland, the action and adventure of Michiel's mission makes for a gripping read, while the anguish of his experience underscores the ultimate anti-war tenor of the novel.

Jan Terlouw was born in the Netherlands in 1931. He worked as a nuclear physicist in countries across the world before entering politics as a representative of the Dutch D66 party in 1971. Alongside his political career he has written many successful children's books, including Winter in Wartime, which was based on his own memories of the Nazi occupation. It won the Golden Pen Prize for the best Dutch children's book in 1973 and has since been adapted for film and stage.

Laura Watkinson is a full-time translator from Dutch, Italian, and German. She lives in Amsterdam.