THE WHEEL ON THE SCHOOL by Meindert DeJong is a treat of old-fashioned values, hope, determination, teamwork, and redemption.
This book won the Newbery in 1955, and it’s been on my reading list since I was old enough to realize there was a list of winners begun the same year my dad was born. One of the joys of reading it is the fact that Maurice Sendak illustrated it. I think I could read and look at anything by Maurice Sendak every single day of my life.
The story is that of six school children in a remote fishing village of Shora, in Holland. The six children represent the entire school-age population, but they are a mighty little force. When they, led by Lina, the only girl in school, realize that Shora is lonely and stark because there are no storks residing in the village–and there are no trees–they launch a campaign to get a wheel on top of the school so storks have a place to nest. Each school child becomes a real character, and we as readers recognize the strengths and shortcomings of each. We meet Janus, the legless town grump, who is redeemed and becomes a hero in the course of the story.
Each child almost retrieves a wheel but gets foiled in the arduous process. Each has to make a moral decision somewhere along the line, and in the end, teamwork and kindness win out. The dangers and toil faced in this story are real: it’s not just a sweet kids’ book with a good moral. It gives us as readers a sense of the danger of the sea and the harshness of life by the dikes. It also makes us aware of how much more we can accomplish if we work together rather than trying to outshine those around us.
Another delight for me was the fact that the book fit every stereotype of “Dutch life” that I learned as a child: wooden shoes on each pair of feet (except legless Janus, of course), little white Dutch caps atop the girls’ heads, baggy trousers on the boys, and life nearly atop the dikes.
I read HANS BRINKER AND THE SILVER SKATES as a child. I loved that book. I remember a Disney special bringing that story to life. I had Dutch paper dolls and a doll from Holland. Wooden shoes, little while Dutch caps. As I grew older, I assumed that all the trappings were nothing but archaic stereotypes. This book made me think that all those images I carried in my head were true for the time period.
Anyway, if you’d like a delightful back-in-time read that applies to today in all its lessons and story tension, I can’t recommend THE WHEEL ON THE SCHOOL quite firmly enough.
Subscribe To Rebecca'sNewsletter
Join the mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from Rebecca.
You have Successfully Subscribed!