Winter in Wartime

Author(s): Jan Terlouw; Laura Watkinson

Confident Readers

A gripping and fast-paced adventure story about one boy's life-threatening mission to support the secret resistance in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, based on the author's own childhood in Holland during World War II.


It's the winter of 1944-45, and Michiel's country has been at war since he was eleven. Now he's fifteen, and his country is under Nazi occupation, including the town where Michiel lives and where his father is the mayor. No longer able to attend school, Michiel spends his days running urgent errands on his bicycle, avoiding Allied bombers and German soldiers alike. Then one day, his friendship with Dirk, the neighbor's older son and a member of the secret underground, involves him in the care of a wounded British pilot. When a German soldier is found murdered and the townspeople are blamed for his death, Michiel's already-risky mission turns life-threatening.


Winter in Wartime is a fast-paced and exciting novel, which has never been out of print in the Netherlands since it was first published, nearly fifty years ago. Based on the author's own boyhood in wartime Holland, the action and adventure of Michiel's mission makes for a gripping read, while the anguish of his experience underscores the ultimate anti-war tenor of the novel.

19.00 NZD

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Product Information

An award winning children's classic, a gripping story about the horrors and dilemmas of war

Jan Terlouw studied at Utrecht University where he earned a PhD degree in nuclear physics and worked in the Netherlands, the United States, and Sweden. After 13 years as a physicist, he became a politician, joining the Dutch House of Representatives and acted as party leader from 1973-1982. He was minister of Economic Affairs from 1981 to 1982 and Commissar of the Queen of Gelderland from 1991 to 1996, the year in which he retired. He joined the Dutch Senate in 1999. He also wrote various children's books, notably Winter in Wartime (1972) and How to Become King (1978). Terlouw is currently married with four children.

General Fields

  • : 9781782691839
  • : Pushkin Press, Limited
  • : Pushkin Children's Books
  • : September 2019
  • : ---length:- '19.8'width:- '12.9'units:- Centimeters
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Jan Terlouw; Laura Watkinson
  • : Paperback
  • : 2003
  • : English
  • : 839.31364
  • : 224