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Edward van de Vendel

What a wonderful idea it was to make the okapi the protagonist of a non-fiction book. Because how much do we actually know about this animal that looks as if it’s been stuck together? “A bit of deer. A bit of horse. A bit of zebra.” It turns out that they don’t bray. They don’t whinny. They don’t bark or trumpet. They hardly make any sounds, at least not sounds that humans can hear. In fact, okapis are so shy and unobtrusive that you could easily make the mistake of walking right past their enclosure at the zoo without noticing them.

Edward van de Vendel and illustrator Martijn van der Linden have come together to create a non-fiction book about the okapi that is both wonderfully original and artistic.

Luckily, thanks to Vote for the Okapi, the chances of that happening have been significantly reduced. Van der Linden’s okapi pictures, with their many different styles and colours, perfectly reflect this creature’s mysterious diversity. Together with Van de Vendel’s poetic, vivid descriptions of the okapi, with its “tiptap hoofs”, “sunny bum” and brown “regal pelt”, which is like “earth that’s just been rained upon”, they stir the reader’s imagination and curiosity. What kind of wonderful creature is this?Then, when you go on to read that okapis exist in the wild only in Congo, that they weren’t discovered until a hundred years ago, that they have no relatives except for the giraffe, and that okapi babies don’t poo for the first nine weeks of their lives, it makes you want to head straight to the zoo. And who knows? You might even get to meet not only the okapis but also one of the okapi keepers who have been interviewed at length in this delightful book by Van de Vendel and Van der Linden.

Fantastic illustrations by Martijn van der Linden, perhaps the finest animal illustrator that our country possesses.

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Stem op de okapi

Driven by their relentless curiosity and unbridled fantasy, Edward van de Vendel and Martijn van der Linden present the okapi as a “splendid and silent mystery animal”. Remarkable facts about one of the last large mammals to be discovered alternate with small okapi stories and cheerful little okapi poems. Van de Vendel’s words are interspersed with Van der Linden’s striking and original illustrations, which show a remarkable range of styles composition and atmosphere.

Vote for the Okapi

The poet weaves these exciting extras into his stimulating, often funny verses. The newspaper becomes ‘paper meals on wheels’ for the ‘letterbox’ and a young narrator whispers to the cat on his lap, dreaming of tasty mice: ‘They’re biting back today!’In the title poem ‘Guppy’ the cat has eaten almost all the guppies in the fishbowl. Almost, but not quite all: one still swims proudly round, and that one last fish comforts the little boy for the loss of all the others. Because:I’d rather have this single feller Than all the others put together Super guppy swimming round Being there – That’s all that counts.It’s brilliant to finally link childish pride in that one surviving fish (‘super guppy’) with the adult statement: ‘Being there – that’s all that counts’. This, for instance, is where Van de Vendel’s readers have to put in that extra bit of effort, but he writes in such a way that they are quite capable of doing so. Great, classy kids’ poetry!By Peter de Boer

With Super Guppy he has instantly become one of that select group of poets in whose timeless children’s verse anthologers will one day find gold.

The funniest and most enchanting collection of recent months is, without a doubt, Super Guppy by Edward van de Vendel.

Edward van de Vendel surprises again. Where in his previous collections of poetry for children from about nine his original imagery was a breath of fresh air, in this collection he turns children’s poetry upside down.

Super Guppy

Super Guppy is a collection of fifty-one wonderful, multifaceted poems for children of six years and up. Van de Vendel stays close to home: splashing through puddles and getting your socks wet, being tucked in at night by Mum, and having a plaster on your knee – ow! – taken off. To these familiar things, he adds dimension, an unusual way of seeing things, to make the young reader work a little. The storm lashes at the windows, but it breathes too, just like the child, for instance. Or a dead blackbird lies ‘folded flat / in the station on the ground’ and no one notices, not even Mummy.

Kix and his sister want to keep the dog and they decide to call him Sam. But Kix’s dad discovers that the dog actually belongs to a disturbed character called Cracker, the son of the nasty neighbours across the road. It’s not long before Sam becomes the focus of a quarrel between neighbours. Things get particularly tense during a night-time mission to liberate Sam, which leads to shotguns being used. Yet the story remains entirely credible. Part two, Sam’s Riddles, is no less exciting: the dog disappears and Kix sets off in search of him.Philip Hopman’s lively pen-and-ink drawings are outstanding, making Sam look wonderfully lumbering and sweet.

A moving book to be read at one long stroke.

Psychologically varied and multi-layered literature that never goes over children’s heads.

Toen kwam Sam

‘Seeing him was always a surprise, because he was so beautiful and white, and a little bit mysterious.’ Nine-year-old Kix and his younger sister Emilia fall in love with a big Pyrenean mountain dog the instant he walks into their lives. The dog is nervous and thin, with sad eyes and tangles in his ‘warm snowy fur’. Slowly the children gain his trust. But where did he come from?

This heart-warming story is one of Edward van de Vendel’s best books so far, mainly because of its tone. Based on a true story, it flows as if telling itself. Kix’s voice and experiences strike the reader as utterly authentic.

Then Came Sam

The poet and the artist have compiled a ‘self-help collection’ for children, in which every poem is another lesson. The titles of the poems include ‘What to do if your train is delayed’ and ‘What to do if someone has died and you didn’t know them very well.’ And, of course, ‘What to do if you stumble on a hippopotamus’. The advice in that case is: say sorry and then shovel in so many sweets that the next hippos you encounter have to get out of your way.The two poems that advise you what to do when you’re in love subtly mislead the young reader: if you want to woo a boy, play really loud tunes on the recorder, and if you want to win a girl’s heart, build an insect hotel: ‘Everyone knows girls get a kick out of creepy-crawlies, don’t they?’ The irony should be clear, because Van de Vendel’s real lesson here is that it’s wise to keep thinking for yourself. That’s something that really will be of some use.

This is parlando poetry bursting with linguistic fun. Van de Vendel plays with words in a light, sparkling way.

The texts are as varied in style and emotion as the illustrations by Martijn van der Linden. In addition to the funny, ironic poems, the collection also includes heartfelt, touching poems, like one about a forgetful grandfather and a sad mother (‘When she feels she can lean on you for a moment / a bit of the trouble washes / out of her head’). That makes this book a collection that demonstrates exactly what characterizes Edward van de Vendel’s oeuvre: he takes children seriously, nudging his readers towards happiness, but they have to take those steps themselves:

Not only the best collection of poetry Van de Vendel has ever made, but also a book that shows exactly where Dutch children’s literature is right now.

Wat je moet doen als je over een nijlpaard struikelt

‘Poems that will be of some use to you’ is the subtitle of this textually and visually multi-faceted collection of poetry by Edward van de Vendel and Martijn van der Linden.

What to Do If You Stumble on a Hippopotamus

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