CATHOLIC WRITERS | Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006)

Hilda, probably Christmas 1944, with her children.
From right to left, clockwise: Olga, Sheila, John,
Brigid, Randal. Lis was Catherine in the second
and third books of the Canadian trilogy. Photo ©
by permission of Estate of Hilda van Stockum.

[The following is an excerpt from Walter Romig, The

Second Book of Catholic Authors, 2012. Romig was born in 1905 so he would be 116 years old in 2021. This is a scanned version of the book via HathiTrust. Google describes it the book as being in the public domain. Since the comments by Hilda van Stockum are as of circa 1944, the book must have appeared around that time.]

A YOUNG FRIEND of mine, around nine years old, when asked at school to write about her past life, began dramatically: 

“I was born in the slums of Amsterdam while my heartless mother was enjoying herself in Pans.”

Nothing as exciting happened to me. I was born in a comfortable house in Rotterdam in 1908, with both my parents very much in attendance and suitably impressed. In fact, I have learned that they made quite a fuss over me. 

My father was an officer in the Royal Dutch Navy, and we moved about quite a bit. That may have been the reason I didn’t go to school until I was ten years old and already knew how to read and write. I read so voraciously, in fact, that I knew all about school long before I went there, and the day that I was first told to stand in the corner was a red-letter day for me! I’ve tried to express this delight in my book Pegeen, where a little girl also goes to school late and enjoys experiencing what she had so often read about. 

Another happy day was when I first discovered that I could write down my own stories. I immediately began a long tale [p. 304 of book] about two little girls called Mientje and Cateau, their adventures interrupted by sums and grammar and punctuated with inkblots. However, what worried me most was the cramp in my fingers I got from writing. Being only eight at the time, the physical effort was greater than the mental, and I remember wondering whether grownups also had to go through such agony whenever they wrote. 

In the first years of my life my mother spoke English with me. Her mother was Irish and had spoken English with her. Later on, when my brothers were born and Dutch nurses came into the house, my mother stopped talking English with us and I forgot a great deal of it. But I believe the ease with which I express myself in English is due to the fact that it was my chief language as a baby. 

My parents were not Catholic; I was the first in both families to come back to the Faith. The first time I felt an interest in the Catholic Church was when I was six years old. My father and mother never talked to me about religion, but they once left me to be cared for by a Catholic nurse who had pictures of Christ in her bedroom. I didn’t know who He was and asked about Him; so she put me on the bed and talked to me for an hour. She was terribly shocked that I should be so ignorant, and seemed to blame my parents, so I did not love her, but the story she told impressed me. A little later, I got a children’s Bible and I said I wanted to go to church. My parents, both agnostics, sent me with the servants to the village church: a whitewashed, chilly affair with nothing that would appeal to a child. There was only a black-coated man talking a long time in a peculiar voice. I decided that I had been fooled; it wasn’t a church at all; and 

I didn’t ask to go again. 

But one day when I was walking with my mother, we passed a Catholic Church, and I immediately dragged my mother inside. 

“This is a church!’* I cried, sniffing the incense. “This is what I meant; this is where God is!’’ Mother thought it all very dangerous and unsuitable and quickly hurried me away. [p. 305 of book] 

Before I went to school, my father used to give me geography lessons with an orange and a candle. I remember being exceedingly troubled at the idea of becoming an angel and flapping around between all the big round worlds in a space that never ended. The way my father talked about it, I calculated that 

there wasn’t much chance of my ever meeting another angel except once in a thousand years or so, and even when you did meet one there wouldn’t be much to do but sit on one of those round worlds and have a chat. Even if you fell off it made no difference, because there wasn’t anywhere to fall to. I remember being so troubled about it that I had to get out of my bed and go to my parents to be consoled. They were playing chess together and looked very cosy and comforting. They convinced me that my fears were more funny than tragic. 

Of course there isn’t space enough to tell all that happened in my life so far, but it seems to me the best thing will be to tell roughly what events brought me into the Church. You see, most other Catholic authors are born Catholics and have to tell how they became authors; but I was born with an ever-wagging tongue, and can more fitly describe how I became a Catholic. 

When I was sixteen, we moved to Ireland, and there, of course, I came in close contact with the Catholic Church. I attended the art school in Dublin and argued about philosophy with the other students. I read Freud and Shaw and Dostoievsky and interested myself in the Montessori system of education. Presently I heard that there was a Montessori school in Waterford, and I wrote a 

letter to the Mother Superior of the convent which ran the school, asking if I might see it. I got a kind letter back, inviting me to come, and so one day I walked up the driveway to the convent door. 

I was eighteen then. I wore a bright red dress, close cropped hair, and was gaily swinging my round straw hat by its elastic band. I never saw such merriment as when the Sisters caught sight of me. When they had laughed their fill they explained that they had expected and dreaded the arrival of an elderly, severe-looking schoolmistress, with pince-nez and notebook. [p. 306] 

They couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw me ambling up the driveway. It was a great relief to them; and they promptly proceeded to spoil me. I was a vegetarian in those days, and so they pressed lettuce and fruit on me every hour, for fear I would waste away in front of their eyes. They let me help with the housework, and in the evenings I sat in the room where the novices weren’t even allowed and talked my head off to a circle of appreciative listeners. This visit made a deep impression on me. 1 hadn’t known nuns could be so natural and so merry, and their cordiality and gifts touched my heart. When the Mother 

Superior gave me a badge of the Sacred Heart to wear I carried it about for a long time until it got lost. 

When I was nineteen, I went back to Amsterdam to study art, and there, in a library, I found G. K. Chesterton, who has since been my guiding light among mortals. I bought all his books, and felt how the sweeping broom of his intellect was cleaning the attic of my mind. 

In 1931, 1 went back to Ireland and met my husband, who was then studying at Trinity College, Dublin, and a friend of my brother’s. We married in 1932, and he went off to America, his native country, to get a position, and send for me when he had things settled. While he was gone, I came in contact with what is called “the Oxford Group,’’ and experienced an emotional conversion. I thought I had discovered the secret of life, and made a fool of myself trying to convert fellow Christians to my own recent immature faith; but I was blissfully ignorant of that, 

and very happy. It was around that time that I wrote A Day on Skates (1934). After a while, I discovered that the Oxford Group was good as an irritant to startle you out of your own groove, but entirely unfit as a daily spiritual guide. So I searched among churches, and chose one that wouldn’t be too particular about dogma, landing in the Episcopal church. But the Episcopal church has many mansions, and as I practiced religion and grew in wisdom, I wandered higher and higher until I became a bigoted Anglo-Catholic. Those were the days when I would poke my head into a church and sniff. I could tell whether it 

was “high” or “low.” 

[p. 307] In February, 1934, I arrived at last in New York, where my first baby [Olga—Joan in The Mitchells trilogy] was born in November of the same year. When she was three months old, my husband got a position with the gov- 

ernment [he was hired by Henry Morgenthau for the Farm Credit Administration] and we moved to Washington, D.C., where my four next 

babies were bom and where my widowed mother came to join us. 

Meanwhile, even the Anglican church proved unsatisfactory and distressingly illogical; so finally, in 1939, the light dawned and I became a Catholic. The Cottage at Bantry Bay, and, Francis on the Run, its sequel, were written in the Anglican days. They were inspired by an Irish family which I knew very well. The three later books, Kersti and Saint Nicholas, Pegeen, and, Andries, were all written after I entered the Church. My mother entered a year after I did and just before the Nazi invasion of Holland, which gave her the strength to bear that 

terrible blow. 

I feel very fortunate and very happy, and I hope in some way through my books to give children a feeling for the beauty of life and its fun. And also its holiness. And the only advice I have for Catholic authors is to love God and neighbor as much as they can. For without love, nothing is ever created. 

Original Editor's note: Hilda van Stockum is, in private life, Mrs. Ervin Marlin. Her later books for younger readers, illustrated by the author, include Kersti and Saint Nicholas, 1940, Viking; Pegeen, 1941, Viking, Andries, 1942, Viking.

Blogger's Note: I am John Tepper Marlin, considerably older than I was in the photo at two years old in 1944; I was Timmy in The Mitchells trilogy. I live in New York City and East Hampton, New York; and Vero Beach, Florida. Olga (Joan) lives in Nairobi, Kenya. Brigid (Patsy) lives in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire,  England. Randal (Peter) lives in Ottawa, Canada. Sheila (Angela) lived outside of Watford, Hertfordshire, England, but sadly is deceased, leaving four daughters and their families. Lis (Catherine) lives in London.  If you want to reach any of my living sibings, contact me at TepperMarlin [at] aol.com. I am also Hilda van Stockum's executor and handle rights including permissions for reproduction of her art and writing. Most of her 25 books for children are still in print and under copyright until 2056. English-language editions are published by Bethlehem Books, Purple House Press and Boissevain Books. Translations of her books are available in French, Danish, Dutch, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese and German. She has also translated books from German and Dutch into English—and her French was pretty good as well. 

ST NICHOLAS | It's His Day – Buy "Kersti and St Nicholas"! (Updated Dec. 6, 2017)

"Kersti and St Nicholas" – slightly modified by the author's
children to make the book accessible to another generation
of families. The illustrations are classic.

December 5, 2017 – It is St Nicholas Eve, my mother's favorite day of the year when we were growing up. She would put up a Christmas tree and then get out her St Nicholas costume.

With great fanfare at dusk she would arrive as St Nicholas, meting out appreciation for all the good things the children did and remonstrating, in a stern but kindly way, about some example of deeds less admirable.

She did such a good job of it! I remember being so impressed with the deep knowledge St Nicholas had of our family. How could he know so much about so many families?

The next morning we would find our stockings hanging full of small gifts, and sometimes a piece of coal with an explanation, a reminder of some egregious malfeasance or nonfeasance. I was stunned. St Nicholas kept track! Who knew?

Hilda van Stockum herself is full of morality. She came down hard on her evil characters, like Leendert in The Winged Watchman. Some librarians found it disconcerting that Kersti managed to persuade St Nicholas to deviate from his normal mission of giving presents only to good children. In Kersti we find a St Nicholas who listens to pleas and can be merciful. The question of the librarians is where mercy ends and injustice begins.

The unexpected turn of the plot surely reflects the impact on van Stockum of Hitler's ruthless invasion of the Netherlands in May of the year of publication, 1940. 

That was van Stockum's country of birth and most of her relatives were deeply threatened. Many would die because they worked in the Resistance. Some died of hunger. One of her two brothers died during the war piloting an RAF plane to fight Hitler. The other brother died of an illness contracted in Holland during the war.

This is a "Speculaas Moulin" – a Dutch windmill 

cookie, with almond and ginger spices. In 

Belgium they are called "Speculoos" cookies. 

They are a specialty of St. Nicholas Day.

One can understand why at that time van Stockum was yearning for benevolence from those with the power to dispense mercy. 

The book Kersti and St Nicholas was originally a hard-cover book published by Viking. The reprint edition is a paperback. Her children edited the text slightly to ensure that the good children did not suffer from the mercy shown to naughty children. 

The illustrations in the book are universally admired, and every year the products offered by Boissevain Books get a little better as reprint technology improves and our ability to ensure quality increases.

Here is a review of the reprint edition:

A beautifully illustrated book for the Holidays about Kersti, a mischievous little girl who is always misbehaving, much to the dismay of her six older sisters and parents. As St. Nicholas Day approaches, Kersti worries that she won't receive any gifts and sets out on an adventure. First published in 1940, this new edition has been abridged and adapted by the author's family to make it more accessible to young readers today. – Fantastic Fiction.

The book has a rating of 4.8 out of 5 on Goodreads and 4 out of 5 on Amazon. So:

• Read three chapters free (with our permission) at the St Nicholas Center website. 
• Then buy the book from Amazon or from us, the publisher (and get on our email list).

More about St Nicholas

St Nicholas is the patron saint of millers and sailors, Holland and New York City. St Nicholas appears the evening before his feastday, i.e., the evening of December 5.

Above is a photo of a cookie my wife Alice Tepper Marlin purchased in Belgium. It is a St Nicholas Day specialty. It has a windmill on it because it's a specialty of Holland and other low countries threatened by floods.

First published in 1962, The Winged Watchman
 has sold 55,000 copies in reprint since 1997.
 It has been optioned for a movie and a 
television mini-series.

Hurricane Sandy a year ago shut down much of New York City and reminded us of the Dutch skill at keeping out water. Much of Holland is at or below sea level and the windmills pump out the "polders", the areas surrounded by dikes (Dutch embankments).

The Port of Rotterdam is a great example of Dutch engineering to keep water at bay. It is also where my Hilda van Stockum was born. Her father was a naval captain and she grew up near ports and naval bases. Her book, The Winged Watchman (1962), was republished in 1997 after 20 years being out of print. It has sold 55,000 copies in the reprint version, has been optioned for a movie, and is currently under option for a television miniseries. The book by my mother has special relevance in light of Hurricane Sandy, which caused most of its damage because of flooding and caused most of the lost economic activity because of the electricity outages.

The story is about a family that lives in an old windmill during the Nazi Occupation. Two boys aged 10 and 14 join the Resistance. The book shows how the windmill did their work when the electric mills were starved for fuel during the Dutch famine.

New York City has lost the skills of its Dutch colonists and Hurricane Sandy did major damage to the areas of NYC near water. If the Dutch were still in charge this might not have happened. Bring 'em back!

Seal of the City of New York. Note windmill 
"wings" and two beavers.

The Dutch first came to New York when the Dutch East India Company in 1609 sent English navigator Henry Hudson to explore the river now named after him. He went far north into what is now Canada and wrote back to his sponsors that beavers lived on the river in abundance. A Dutch settlement, New Amsterdam, was founded in Manhattan largely to support trapping beavers and sending them to Europe for women to wear. The New York City coat of arms has two beavers on it as well as a four windmill wings in honor of the Dutch settlers.

The Dutch have been facing these flooding problems for many centuries. Their world preeminence in building windmills to pump out water also made them experts in making sails for the mill wings and this helped make them a global naval power for a time.

After the English took over the Dutch colony in 1664, they renamed it New York. The city grew most rapidly when the Hudson River became the gateway not only to upstate New York but also, after the Erie Canal was built, to the Great Lakes.

The Dutch have developed many kinds of technology to deal with today's challenges to their flood-threatened system of polders. New York needs to get their advice. The Winged Watchman provides both a history of the importance of windmills in Dutch history and an education in the ways to deal with flooding.

FEATURED BOOK | "Little Old Bear"

In honor of Hilda van Stockum's birthday (she would be 109 on February 8 this year – she died 11 years ago) Boissevain Books is featuring LITTLE OLD BEAR.

Here is a review of the book by Alex Baugh on the Randomly Reading site.

Here's another review posted by Judy Polhemus:

Sometimes toys have wishes. The Velveteen Rabbit wanted to be real, and soon enough, he was. Little Old Bear just wants to be wanted. And so it comes to pass.

The lovely pen and ink drawings of Little Old Bear render him worn out yet reminiscent of better days. (Hilda van Stockun both wrote and illustrated the story.) He knew the same cycle of love that the Velveteen Rabbit knew. He was loved until the child was grown, then set aside. At least, Little Old Bear finds himself in the attic, where....the lady of the house comes to clean and throws out the bear! Birds reject him, a kitty rejects him, and little boys find him and toss him around like a ball, then throw him in someone's backyard. A little girl claims hims, then rejects him, and throws him back onto the sidewalk, where a kind old lady discovers him and takes him home.

The old lady gives him back his eyes and sits him in the front window where he watches the world pass by. He sees little boys and girls play with their nice new stuffed bears and feels lucky just an old lady found him. [And then a wonderful thing happens to him...]

HILDA VAN STOCKUM | Her Books (Updated Feb. 2, 2017)

Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006).

Dec. 25, 2016–Today is the 100th Anniversary of the memorial service for Inez Milholland Boissevain, who died on November 25, 1916 in Los Angeles. Inez's death played a significant considerable part in the passage in 1920 of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, recognizing the right of women to vote. Inez married my mother's uncle, Eugen Boissevain in 1913. 

An article I wrote about the centennial of the memorial ceremony for Inez and a dozen other blogposts in the last two months have generated a surge of interest in the books of my mother, Hilda van Stockum. See chart below and her photo (as an art student) at left.

Her 25 books for children and young adults were originally published by Harper & Brothers, Viking and Farrar Straus during the period 1934-1975, a span of 41 years. Her last book, which she thought was her best one, was The Borrowed House.

Of these books, 15 are currently available in English from three publishers in the United States. Her books are available in other languages from several foreign publishers (the Japanese edition of A Day on Skates and the Dutch edition of The Borrowed House are two examples).

Monthly page views, hildavanstockum.blogspot.com, end of Dec., 2016.

Three U.S. publishers currently sell 15 HvS books in the English langage:

The Purple House Press reissued The Borrowed House in 2016. This extraordinary book takes us back to Hitler's occupation of Holland and presents the situation in Amsterdam from the perspective of a 12-year-old German girl in Hitler Youth who took as gospel Hitler's theories of racial superiority. These theories did not fit the reality she came to see in occupied Amsterdam.

Bethlehem Books sells eight HvS books. It took a lead in 1995 in reissuing some of her books that were out of print, notably The Winged Watchman (originally published by Farrar Straus). Other books currently sold by Bethlehem Books are A Day on Skates, the Irish Trilogy (The Cottage at Bantry Bay, Francie on the Run and Pegeen), and the Mitchells Trilogy (The Mitchells or V for Victory, Canadian Summer and Friendly Gables).

Boissevain Books LLC sells six HvS books. It has in recent years reissued five HvS books that were out of print, including Little Old Bear, Patsy and the Pup, Kersti and St. Nicholas, Penengro, and King Oberon's Forest. It also sells Pamela Walks the Dog, originally published by Bethlehem Books. (Boissevain Books also issued a new edition of Olga Marlin's To Africa with a Dream, and Brigid Marlin's A Meaning for Danny and The Box House, and most recently published Kate Bodsworth's Princess Josephine and the Rainbow Dragon. Bois Books also sells a large-sized durable poster of Inez Milholland Boissevain, HvS's aunt.) In the pipeline for reissue are several more HvS books, including The Angel's Alphabet, Andries and Gerrit and the Organ. 

If you are interested in Holland, World War 2, Hitler's Occupation, the Resistance, or any of the other themes that Hilda van Stockum took up, her books continue to enlighten and enthrall. 

Click on the publisher's name above to have any of these books delivered to your door.

BOOKS | New-Found Letter (Updated Feb. 2, 2017)

Boissevain Books Edition
of Kersti, 2010.

I have just come across an interesting letter from Hilda van Stockum dated December 15, 1995.

It is addressed to Jean Ann Sharpe has just surfaced of Bethlehem Books, which was going to print Kersti and St. Nicholas and had correspondence with the author about possible revisions.

In the end, the publication of Kersti dropped off the Bethlehem Books schedule. Boissevain Books picked it up instead.

The six HvS children collectively amended the book for several reasons listed below by HvS in the letter to Jean Ann Sharpe. HvS made changes starting on p. 59 of the original edition of Kersti and ending on p. 70.

Here is HvS's letter:

Dear Jean Ann, 

I wrote you some time ago but didn't send the letter as I waited to finish my correction of Kersti and St. Nicholas's ending, which I enclose now - but I lost the original letter in which I thanked you for the new books and the free copies and was enthusiastic about the new books. You are really wonderful in the cheerful appearance of the books.

You understand my spirit. May Massee [Viking's children's book editor] always wanted to show me as a significant writer. They [the books by Viking] got the prizes, but they are not always enjoyed by children - and you understand my approach - without pretensions - just colorful and friendly. So I am very pleased and so are my children.

Meanwhile I have been looking at Kersti, and it is a good book. Have you got it? The book was criticized on three points:

1. The Uncle Tom-ism of [St. Nick's] black servant, which soon after became non-u [today we would more likely say non-PC].  Actually, he was a Moorish servant from the Spain that St.  Nicholas supposed to come from (probably because Spain ruled Holland for so long. So I've changed him from Pieterbaas to Pedro - he calls St. Nicholas Señor - and I have left out the Negro characteristics - and Pedro is less servile.

2. The good children got no gifts. I agree with that now. I was young then [Kersti was published in 1940, when HvS was 32; it was the year that HvS's birthplace, Holland, was invaded; her first book was published six years earlier] and liked shocking people a bit. I also thought no child would identify with the good children. It was the librarians who were offended! Actually the story is better now, St. Nicholas performs a miracle, which is all right as it may be only a dream.

3. St. Nicholas boasts of reuniting cut-up and picked children. It's a true legend, but I have eliminated it. I think this has improved the story.

I hope you'll approve [of the changes]. May Massee should have spotted those things. She wasn't severe enough with me - but she was marvelous, the way she believed in me. I owe her a lot. As a writer I wasn't housebroken yet, when she got me. 

Have a lovely Christmas - you all deserve one. 

Love, 

Hilda

HvS AT BEA 2015 | BookExpo, NYC

Ellen Siegel will be at BookExpo America this week at the Javits Center in New York City, representing the Boissevain Books and the Estate of Hilda van Stockum regarding rights to HvS's books.

She has prepared a one-page summary of the books on behalf of which she has been working.

I will also be there, blogging about children's books and other publishing topics that catch my attention. Contact Ellen at the number above or me (John Tepper Marlin) at my cell phone, 646-250-4915 or at teppermarlin@aol.com.

HvS KIN | Family Websites and Blogs

Hilda van Stockum in 1932, the year she married
my father in Dublin.

Since my mother Hilda van Stockum died, I have been trying to keep alive her memory and her many books for children. Along the way I have been doing research on her family. In this post I am providing a tour d'horizon of the various purposes of the different websites and blogs.

Hilda van Stockum and Her Books

The oldest website is www.hildavanstockum.com. This website was created in 2006. The last content was added in 2007. It is meant to be an extended memory of her life and remembrances at the time of her death. Updates are here on this blogsite - www.hildavanstockum.blogspot.com.

I am promoting her books at the website www.boissevainbooksLLC.com and the blogsite www.boissevainbooks.blogspot.com.

More broadly, I write about authors and illustrators of children's books at www.writers4kids.blogspot.com.

The Boissevain Family

The website www.boissevain.us is updated irregularly and includes a great deal of information about my mother's Dutch family. Updates are more regularly posted about the families of my mother and grandmother (Olga Boissevain) on two sites:

www.inezmb.blogspot.com focuses on Inez Milholland Boissevain, who married my grandmother's brother Eugen Boissevain. It focuses on the lives of Eugen and his two wives, Inez and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and related woman suffrage issues. I have posted there recently.

www.nyctimetraveler.blogspot.com covers the Boissevain family. I have recently been writing about their active roles fighting Hitler in the Dutch Resistance. I have been posting here a lot recently. Plans are afoot for a Boissevain Family Reunion in the spring of 2016. Stay tuned. Please comment on my blogs or send me an email - teppermarlin@aol.com. THANKS!!

Hilda van Stockum at 105 - A Long Publishing Life

It is the 105th birthday today of my mother, Hilda van Stockum. She would be 105 years old tomorrow, but she died in 2006 at 98. My siblings have written some appreciations of her life that I will post on the birthday calendar.

Meanwhile, I have been going the publishing agreements she left behind, and I made a table for them below. The first book contract that I find is for "A Day on Skates" with Harper & Brothers, in 1933. The last one was with Bethlehem Books in 1999 - a span of 66 years. That is an amazing career. 

A couple of stories about the table that follows. Hilda van Stockum married my father E. R. Marlin in 1932. It was the Depression so they needed money! My father was in New York City looking for work and he visited publishers on his wife's behalf. Viking's May Massee was out the day he called on them (she had just started with Viking, starting their juvenile division, after ten years at Doubleday), so it wasn't an oversight on her part that she didn't jump at the first book. Harper & Bros. had published a book of poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, so Dad tried them and they bought the book. Millay wrote a nice preface.  The book succeeded in getting rave reviews in many publications, including the New Yorker, the NY Times and the Herald Tribune. May Massee wooed Hilda and took 13 of Hilda's books between 1937 and 1965.

Massee retired from Viking around 1960. Hilda's most popular book, "The Winged Watchman," was published next by Farrar Straus, which also published "The Borrowed House" - both about the Occupation of Holland in World War II.    

Memoranda of Agreements between Hilda van Stockum (or Estate) and Publishers

Year, Month	Book	Publisher, Editor
1933 November	A Day on Skates in Holland	Harper & Bros., Raymond
1937 October	The O’Sullivans (Cottage at Bantry)	Viking, Beal
1939 February	Francie on the Run	Viking, Massee
1939 November	Pegeen	Viking, Massee
1940 April	Kersti and St. Nicholas	Viking, Massee
1942 June	Andries	Viking, Massee
1943 July	Gerrit and the Organ	Viking, Massee
1945 Feb 1947 March	The Mitchells - Canadian Summer	Viking, Massee
1948 June	The Angels’ Alphabet	Viking, Massee
1949 December	Patsy and the Pup	Viking, Massee
1956 June	King Oberon’s Forest	Viking, Massee
1959 July	Friendly Gables	Viking, Massee
1961 May - 1974	Holland Story (Winged Watchman)	Farrar Straus& Cudahy, Cudahy
1961 July	Little Old Bear, Jeremy Bear	Constable, Grover
1962 May	Little Old Bear	Viking, Duff
1965 October	Mogo’s Flute	Viking, Duff
1973 February	Jacko Round and Round (Rufus)	Longman Young Books
1997 March	Reprint of Winged Watchman	Bethlehem, Sharpe
1997 March	Reprint of 3 Irish books	Bethlehem, Sharpe
1997 March	Reprint of 3 Mitchells Books	Bethlehem, Sharpe
1997 March	Reprint of A Day on Skates	Bethlehem, Sharpe
1997 March	Reprint of The Angel’s Alphabet	Bethlehem, Sharpe
1997 October	New Edition of Mugo’s [sic] Flute	Focus Publications
1998 March	Andries	Bethlehem, Sharpe
1999 August	Pamela Walks the Dog	Bethlehem, Sharpe
2009 January	Translation of A Day on Skates	Fukuinkan Shoten

I can't get over the fact that my mom's book "The Winged Watchman" has sold 50,000 copies in 15 years being marketed only to a relatively small group - U.S. and Canadian Christian home schoolers. It gets a 4.1 rating on the graded-on-a-curve Goodreads.com site, with 317 reviewers. It is ranked there in the top dozen books for children about World War II. (If you know the book, please add yourself to the rankers at http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17000.Best_Children_s_Books_about_World_War_II_1939_1945!)