Also in my mind, 'Journey through the night' is due for a 35th printing

The 35th(!) edition of Reis door de nacht, the classic novel written by Anne de Vries, was published recently. As a ten-year-old boy, I empathised intensely with the war adventures of Jan de Boer and his family members. The book is also a metaphor for my own struggle against darkness.

It is a lovely spring day. In the ditch, a duck swims with her chicks. Birds are chirping, flowers are budding, in the fields farmers are at work. Then an excited splashing and croaking sounds. A rat hee...