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Dolf Verroen was born in 1928, in Delft (Netherlands) and he is an author, a critic, a translator and an essay-writer. His first book for children was published in 1958. Since then, he has published about sixty books for children, many of which have been awarded with numerous prizes, including, in three times, the Silver Pencil Award, the highest award given to children’s books in the Netherlands.
Maria receives a very special present in her twelve birth day: a little dark boy, a slave. The broadly acclaimed German writer Dolf Verroen gives the reader a ride to the age of slavery, at one ancient Dutch colony in the Pacific Ocean. “All people in this story are fictitious, but all this actually happened indeed”, as the author writes in the epilogue.
What a cute white girl I am has been awarded with the following prizes, among others:
- German Children’s Literature Award 2006
- Peace Award Gustav Heinemann 2006 (Germany)
- Lynx of the month, awarded by Die Zeit and Bremen Radio
- Owl of the month, awarded by Children and Young Adults’ Literature Bulletin (Germany).
- The top seven, awarded by Germany Radio.
“Savage is the most accurate adjective for this work, by acclaimed German writer Dolf Verroen, about slavery. What makes this novel a different, brave and successful one is the point of view chosen by the author to “show” the brutality of slavery. That is because the one who speaks is María, a girl who is given a slave, Koko, as a present in her 12 birthday. For her, this is a natural event, she does not question it and she just treats her slaves the same way she see in other relatives. This story resembles a diary, with forty short chapters, each one focused on a different moment in the days after Maria’s birthday, written by means of short sentences, like a poem… sentences that lack emotion or reflection about what María is living, they are just a list of facts and events… the author does not condemn slavery directly, he does not judge María, but he rather let the readers come to their own conclusions after checking the contempt this little girl feels for those from other races or backgrounds.” (Children and Young Adults’ Literature Notebooks, CLIJ).
Al gran oso le gustaría jugar en el parque. Pero no con los niños. Quiere todo el parque para él solo: el columpio, el laberinto, todo. Y como es mucho más fuerte que los niños, puede, naturalmente, impedirles jugar. Sin embargo, cuando está sentado en el balancín, necesita a alguien en el otro extremo.
Recomendado por Canal Lector.
"El autor, Dolf Verroen, construye un personaje caricaturesco que rompe las expectativas: sitúa en esta escena a un corpulento oso, que no es precisamente muy avispado y que, además, es bastante egoísta (...). Las fantásticas ilustraciones de Erlbruch acompañan esta historia. El ilustrador, como ya hizo en su álbum ilustrado El milagro del oso, construye un oso muy peculiar, marcado con su propio y característico estilo" (Boolino).
"... Mención aparte merecen las ilustraciones de Wolf Erlbruch, tan limpias, tan ricas, tan cálidas, tan delicadas...queda uno mirándolas sin prisa, disfrutándolas largo rato. Un regalo. Un libro estupendo que os recomiendo" (Pep Bruno, Por los caminos de la Tierra Oral).
