Author Nominee: The Netherlands

Guus Kuijer
The Netherlands, Illustrator

I didn't want to hide any more behind artistically constructed phrases and stories. I wanted to write in a more direct style. Writing for children means getting rid of a lot of excess literary baggage - if you don't, children will see right through it.

- Guus Kuijer

Guus Kuijer, born in Amsterdam in 1942, originally wrote for adults. Although his adult books were critically praised, they were not commercially successful. He published his first children's book in the mid-1970s, when children's books were rediscovered as a weapon in the struggle for a better world. His five books about Madelief (Daisy) were an immediate success. As a true disciple of Annie MG Schmidt, he does not make the children any better behaved or the adults any more sensible than they actually are.

A number of animal stories and socially committed novels for young readers, including the well-regarded 'Madelief ' series, followed, and he was awarded many prizes for his writing. Between 1983 and 1993 he published thirteen books, then nothing was heard from him for a while, until Polleke (Polly) appeared in 1999 in which a new Kuijer heroine attempts to hold her ground in what has become a complex, multicultural society in the Netherlands. There are now five 'Polleke' books in a series which describes the everyday life of a child in a primary school in a big city. Religion is an important theme in the series, and religion is also a signifi-cant feature in Het boek van alle dingen, the story of nine-year-old Thomas, growing up in the early 1950s as a child of a strictly religious, tyrannical father who refuses to recognise anything that might threaten his beliefs.

Many of his books have been translated into English and in recent times he has won further awards. Guus Kuijer's style has been described as precise and graceful with an unsurpassed ability to describe major issues with a modicum of words.