Marjolijn Hof

Biography

‘Becoming a writer was my dream,’ says Marjolijn Hof (b. 1956) on her website. But she was not sure how to make that dream come true. She became a librarian specialising in books for children and young adults, but kept on dreaming. About wonderful children’s books with no age limit. Until 1999. Then she decided to take up writing as a profession. With astounding results – rarely has a new name entered the world of Dutch children’s literature at such a high level. ‘A breath of fresh air’, ‘a surprising new voice’: these were some of the opinions expressed after the publication of Hof’s Een kleine kans (her first 9+ book). In 2007, this resulted in recognition in the form of three major prizes when she won the Gouden Uil Jeugdliteratuurprijs, the Gouden Uil Prijs van de Jonge Lezer and the Gouden Griffel. Hof’s second book Oversteken (Crossing Over) was also well received and has been translated into German, French and Japanese.

Titles

A Small Chance

(Een kleine kans, 2006)

Kiek’s father is a doctor who works for an international aid agency. Now he’s been sent to a distant war zone. Kiek is worried. What if he gets killed? Her mother explains there’s hardly a chance something like that will happen. Kiek wants to make the chance even smaller. She knows one child with a dead father, and one child with a dead mouse. And one child with a dead dog. But a child with a dead mouse, a dead dog and a dead father is something you won’t find very often. Kiek needs a mouse. Continued...

Crossing Over

(Oversteken, 2007)

Oversteken by Marjolijn Hof is a holiday story full of wonderful images and true-tolife characters, written with great style and an original atmosphere. The protagonist is the eleven-year-old Meta, who gives an honest and open account of her futile attempts to get her mother to stay together with her umpteenth new boyfriend, the Icelander Bjarni. She is a completely ‘ordinary’ girl, but she gains a unique voice, thanks to Hof’s natural and light-hearted writing style and talent for capturing large emotions in small details. Continued...

Mother Number Zero

(Moeder nummer nul, 2008)

When Fejzo was eight, he had to fill in the boxes on a form at school to make his family tree. There was only one box for a mother. “I’m adopted,” Fejzo told his teacher, so she allowed him to draw another box for his other mother. He called his biological mother “Mother 1” and his adoptive mother “Mother 2”. “I regretted it straightaway. My mum who’s my mum now had suddenly become number two. I quickly rubbed it all out and filled in the boxes again. In the first box I wrote: Mother 0. Continued...