Nice and Naughty – the rebellious children’s verse of Annie M.G. Schmidt

As second event in our series Children’s Classics, we cannot omit  Dutch author Annie M.G. Schmidt and her rebellious children’s verses.

During the ’50s Annie M.G. Schmidt (1911-1995) published eleven collections of verse for children, altogether more than 300 titles. The poem ‘Ik ben lekker stout’ (translated by David Colmer as ‘Nice and naughty’) is representative of her view on the nature of children’s verse. ‘Start from the child’ was her motto. She wrote that modern children’s verse should be plain, song like and simple, funny and surprisingly nonsensical, and that it must appeal in particular by its dance-like rhythm. Parental authority and morality are sometimes ridiculed in a playfully rebellious way. Schmidt was also inspired by 19th-century English authors like Edward Lear, William Brighty Rands and Lewis Carroll. More than sixty of her poems for children have been translated into English, but her language usage is as Dutch as possible.

Dr. Wim Tigges, literary scholar and frequent lecturer at Mayflower Bookshop will show us In the sublime quality of her children’s verse. The lecture will be illustrated with many citations. Both lecture and citations will be in Dutch.