Publication Day of The Happiest Kids in the World (United Kingdom)

12 January 2017

Today is officially publication day of The Happiest Kids in the World in the United Kingdom and Ireland! The English edition is also now available in Australia and New Zealand, the Netherlands, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Lebanon!

happiest-kids-book-cover

So far, we’ve garnered a bit of attention with our friends from across the pond and a couple of nice reader reviews on Goodreads.com (please add more if our words resonate with you). Here’s what some people have to say about our book:

 

“Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!” Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2, Breakfast Show

 

“Clear and concise, with plenty of anecdotes from family life to illustrate the argument, this is one of the most convincing parenting books to come across my desk in the last year.”

                                               Sian Griffiths, education editor of The Sunday Times

 

“An eye-opening and badly needed dose of perspective. In my next life, I want to be Dutch.”   

                                                Pamela Druckerman, author of French Children Don’t Throw Food

 

“A fascinating book – one I wish I had read sooner! In fact, the more I read the more I became tempted to move our entire family to the Netherlands…”

                                                Sarah Turner author of The Unmumsy Mum


A major serial piece ran in
The Telegraph Weekend:  They raise the world’s happiest children – so is it time you went Dutch? And there was a glowing review in The Sunday Times

 

From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to thank you for your continued support and readership.

 

If you happen to be in Amsterdam this Saturday and want something gezellig to do, come join us for our book launch at 3:30 pm! Or if you can’t make it, we’ll be in the American Book Centre in the Hague on February 11th.

P.s. If you like to procrastinate a bit more from work, come join our Facebook group or read some of our recent blogs at FindingDutchland.com. These past few weeks we’ve written about Gezelligheid & Hygge, The Dutch vs the Danes, The Case for Giving Kids a Basic Income, Oliebollen, Papadag and much more!


P.p.s And come join our mailing list. We promise not to be annoying and rarely send those out anyway.

On Writing, Motherhood and Mentorship

15 November 2016

lifteachotherup_libbyvanderploeg

“Hi, I’m Michele” said this impossibly gorgeous and tall British woman. “I’m Rina.” I replied.


I found myself bracing the frigid February wind to meet my new co-author. And like on any blind date, I was anxious and self-conscious. Just three months beforehand, another random stranger, Marianne Velmans, had emailed me suggesting I
write a book. After reading my preliminary book proposal, she asked – ever so delicately – if I would consider working with her former colleague Michele Hutchison.   


The story that Marianne had in mind was best written by two mothers – one who could write about pregnancy, babies and toddlers (early motherhood) and another who could write about childhood, schools, and teenagers. I wholeheartedly agreed with her. And so did Michele.


But could we trust Marianne to be the right matchmaker? The chemistry had to be just right.


Michele and I decided to meet in Utrecht – a city conveniently located in the middle of Holland, between her home in Amsterdam and mine in Doorn. I suggested the Japanese restaurant Moto because of my pregnancy cravings for udon and tempura.


I tried my best to come with no expectations and meeting in a public place would give a convenient exit strategy just in case it got awkward. I had a sneaking suspicion that she had similar sentiments too.

 

But when I saw her, I was already smitten and it seemed as I was saying hello to an old friend I hadn’t seen for a very long time.


I don’t remember much of our first meeting to be honest. But there were two particular instances that I can recall which left a lasting impression.


The first one was her gently letting me know how intense our relationship and contact would be. “You do know that we would regularly have to be in contact with each other,” said Michele.

 

“Sure, no problem.” I said. I could always use another real life friend. After all, most of my friends were what I called online friends – people who I regularly connected to on Facebook groups and messenger without ever having met in the real world, or who simply live thousands of miles away. My life was conventionally boring, filled with domestic chores, running after my three year-old son and being pregnant.

What I only understood afterwards, well into writing The Happiest Kids in the World was just how intense our communication had to be. We really had to be the best of friends, or it just wouldn’t work. Only after I co-wrote our book could I fully appreciate Michele’s kindness, openness and willingness to work with me. She also became my mentor, teaching me actually how to write a book. I’m ambitious (both by nature and as a product of Tiger parenting) but suffice to say, I had no idea what writing a book actually entailed until I started  doing it. And I guarantee you, it is not for the faint of heart to write a nonfiction book filled with interviews and an honest account of a foreign culture.


I also remember just how unexpectedly supportive Marianne and Michele were about me being an aspiring author and a mother. I blurted out, “Before agreeing with working with me, I have to tell you something. I’m pregnant.”


“Oh, I know. Marianne told me,” replied Michele.

I smiled. Marianne also had a similar positive reaction when I told her.  “Congratulations! What wonderful news, Rina.”


“You’re still willing to work with me?” I said.


“Of course!  Why should your pregnancy prevent you from writing this book?” Marianne said.


Where I come from, it seems that
motherhood and writing are incompatible. The creative life – if one wants to take it seriously and do well – is often romanticized as demanding all one’s attention, leaving little room and time for distractions. Motherhood – the all-consuming, martyr mother image that my American culture puts on a pedestal – demands so much energy that supposedly, not much is left over for creative endeavors, or even work at all.


Yet Michele and Marianne knew another secret. That one can reconcile one’s identities as both a
mother and a writer. The subject matter, after all, was about parenting the happiest kids in the world. Surely mothers should know a bit about happiness too. And apparently, Michele and Marianne were ready to show me the way.


(Lift Each Other GIF courtesy of illustrator and designer Libby VanderPloeg)

Dutchness and Flemishness at the Frankfurt Book Fair

28 October 2016

frankfurt-bookfair-overview

One of the things that worried me from the outset when we were writing THE HAPPIEST KIDS IN THE WORLD was the need to generalize. In order to discuss Dutch parenting culture it was necessary to find things we felt the majority of Dutch parents did, even though there were obvious exceptions. You see, not all Dutch people are happy to let their kids play unsupervised outside from a young age; not all Dutch people are immune to the temptation to push their kids to get high grades. And not all Brits and Americans are helicopter parents trying to teach their coddled toddlers to read and write. There will be plenty of readers who point this out to us, I’m sure. But in order to put together an argument and create discussion, generalisation is a necessary evil. Having studied Comp Lit at university, an approach that picks out key features in national literature and then compares them with others’, comparison is now part of my intellectual make-up and I love trying to make out the big picture.

Last week I was on stage at the Frankfurt Book Fair* discussing the differences between Flemish and Dutch literature with Words Without Borders editor Susan Harris and top Flemish writer, Annelies Verbeke. This was after I’d edited a Flemish feature for the literary magazine and attempted to explain what attracted me to those Belgian-Dutch writers and why the regular Dutch were a bit more boring sometimes. Of course, Annelies Verbeke had her own perfectly valid views – Flemish literature is incredibly diverse and includes writers from many different backgrounds, as does Dutch. In fact it’s important to look at the similarities too, especially given the slogan the Dutch and Flemish had chosen to present themselves under – THIS IS WHAT WE SHARE – as joint guests of honour.

frankfurt-bookfair-2

Being guest of honour at Frankfurt is a pretty big thing in terms of cultural exposure. It meant a delegation of seventy writers (several of whom I have translated or will be translating – yay!). The Dutch and Flemish were super proud since it also meant a massive increase in book translations into German in the run-up to the fair, which will open up access to other languages. There was an opening ceremony with both kings and plenty of press coverage. Holland and Flanders also had an exhibition space in which they could market their culture. They opted for a large wrap-around canvas with a projection of a seascape (the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany share the North Sea coast) and an array of deck chairs. White plastic, sound-insulating, crate-like partitions created smaller spaces which contained a book shop, a comics & graphic novels live production area and a theatre for the lively readings, interviews and performances. So the joint guests of honour presented themselves as quiet, calm, thoughtful, design-oriented, occasionally shouty and with a beating heart of graphic culture. If I’m to be allowed to generalize.

*Frankfurt, a word often on a publisher’s lips, but a difficult concept to grasp for anyone who has never been there. Each year the Messe in Frankfurt opens its doors to the world’s largest book fair and probably the oldest, since it dates back to 500 years ago when Gutenberg developed the printing press in nearby Mainz. With more than 7,000 exhibitors and around 277,000 visitors, it forms a high point in the international publishing calendar in terms of the buying and selling of foreign rights. It is particularly intriguing to writers who are not usually welcome.

** With thanks to the Frankfurt Buchmesse Business Club which invited me to attend as an Ambassador. The Business Club was a chilled out place to take meetings, listen to presentations and get lunch without long queues.