Jip and Janneke

Heiner and Hanni or Julia and Alexander ( Dutch: Jip en Janneke ) are the two main characters from the eponymous children's books by the Dutch writer Annie MG Schmidt. These books are among the most successful and popular children's books in the Netherlands and are in various languages ​​(including German ) translated.

Content

Heiner and Hanni are two preschoolers. They are neighbor's children and often play at and with each other. You have nice parents who allow them a lot, but sometimes have to ban something. Other minor characters are the cat, the dog, Jannekes doll and JIPS bear. In several hundreds of short stories - often for no longer than one or two pages - is told as in the comfortable, familiar home environment as they explore the world of adults and sometimes they do something that their parents forbid them from playing. Although there is a certain separation in gender roles are between the two children - Heiner 's something naughty and dares, Hanni is social and likes to play with dolls - are their characters quite agree. Sometimes they quarrel, which she tolerated but again soon.

Formation

Schmidt had written poems for children since shortly after the end of the war for the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool. As the inspiration for these poems subsided, she started something new: short prose tales of two small children. While children poems often negotiated by fairy tale characters, the inspiration for the Jip en Janneke - stories came from everyday life: Schmidt it was based on the actual experiences of her son flip and its neighbor girl. Later she told me that she very easily wrote these things: you could write ready within minutes. The first story of the two children was published on 13 September 1952 after she wrote a new story every week. Only five years later appeared the last episode in the newspaper.

November 1953 for the first time a collection of the Jip en Janneke - stories in book form was published. Many other episodes, a total of eight (later only five), followed. The first editions of these books had to facilitate hyphens between the syllables reading for children; later editions gave to this notation because the books were written for recitation rather than for self- reading. In 1977, the entire Heiner- and - Hanni- stories were first published in one volume. Although originally created in the fifties stories are sometimes severely outdated ( no TV, low prices, few people have a car ), they are still extremely popular in the Netherlands.

Pictures

Heiner and Hanni owe their popularity partly to their images. For the Jip en Jannekefolge Schmidt worked for the first time with Fiep Westendorp together ( during their earlier poems from cartoonists Wim Bijmoer were illustrated ). Westendorp recorded Heiner and Hanni as silhouettes, because they feared that figures with thin lines on newsprint were difficult visible. Much later, in the second half of the seventies, Westendorp made ​​color images to some of the stories. The old black -and-white images were now so well known that appeared in these new color pictures Heiner and Hanni as black silhouettes.

When the books were published in Britain, the publisher feared discrimination because Heiner and Hanni could be regarded as Negroes. For this issue (under the name Bob and Jilly ) he had then draw other pictures.

Translations

In the Netherlands, are translations into Latin ( Jippus et Jannica ) and the Twentsche ( Jipke Jannöaken s ) available. Into English the book was not less than three times translated ( Mick and Mandy, Bob and Jilly and finally Jip and Janneke easy ). Other languages ​​in which the book is available, are Estonian, Hebrew, Indonesian, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Lithuanian.