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Windmills and wooden shoes

Chapter 8: THE WOODEN SHOES
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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.


THE WOODEN SHOES

Jan and Katrina wear wooden shoes. When they walk, the shoes go “Klip, klop, klip, klop.”

I think it would be hard to walk in wooden shoes.

Do you not think so?

Katrina and Jan do not think so.

They can run and jump and walk in their wooden shoes.

They keep them very clean and white. They scrub them every night before they go to bed. Then they are all nice and clean to put on in the morning.

You might think that a wooden shoe is heavy. It is not heavier than your own shoe.

It is smooth inside. It is as smooth as your own little shoe.

It is held on the foot by a leather strap. Some wooden shoes are painted and have patterns on them. Others are scrubbed as white as snow.