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Windmills and wooden shoes

Chapter 45: WINTER
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About This Book

The narrative follows Dutch siblings Jan and Katrina and their friends as they carry out everyday life in a small Dutch community: chores like milking cows, churning butter, selling milk; play and games; visits to windmills and barges; cultural details such as wooden shoes, storks' nests, blue-and-white dishes, dikes and canals; seasonal events including sleigh rides, St. Nicholas and Christmas; songs and simple illustrated scenes intended for classroom use. Episodes are short and episodic, combining practical descriptions of customs and landscape with domestic scenes to familiarize young readers with Holland's rhythms and material culture.


WINTER

It is winter. The canals in Holland are frozen over. The ice is very smooth and thick.

All the Dutch children have skates. Their fathers and mothers have skates, too. Everybody that is strong and well skates on the Dutch canals in Winter.

Jan and Katrina and their little friends Bram and Hilda and Kassie and Karl all have skates. They skate up and down and around and around.

They have skating matches. The one who can skate farthest and fastest beats. Sometimes Jan beats and sometimes Karl does.

The girls cannot skate as fast as the boys.