Now is the perfect time to improve your mastery of Dutch! Books will help you. Here is a book that can help you to go beyond A2! It’s a children’s book, but it is fun, exciting, playful and full of new words and idioms.
Boer Boris heeft het heet! (Ted van Lieshout & Philip Hopman 2020)
You must have noticed how hot it was, this summer. Het was heet! It has been very very hot! So it’s time to read. Boer Boris heeft het heet! (Farmer Boris is hot!)
The text is by one of our favourite poets and authors Ted van Lieshout and the detailed illustrations were made by the artist Philip Hopman. We’ve lost count how many picture books have been published in The Boer Boris series since 2012, but it must be more than thirteen books. These books have won several prices and are excellent reading material when you have young children.
Who is Boer Boris? Well, contrary to what you may think, Boris is not a grown-up farmer but a “kleuter” (a toddler) who has his own farm. He drives around on a red tractor and is helped by his brother and his sister. Together they experience adventures around the farm, but sometimes they go on a trip. The rhyming verses are very funny and there is a lot that you discover in the pictures. In many books there are a blackbird [merel] and a mouse [muis] in the drawings.
Here is a short quote from the beginning of the book:
Het erf is leeg, de wei is leeg en leeg is ook de akker.
Zou iedereen nog slapen? Nee, Knol het paard is wakker.
Hij heeft het heet, de stakker.
Gelukkig staat hij in de stal, niet in de volle zon.
Want anders smólt hij! (Als een paard van warmte smelten kon.)
[The yard is empty, the meadow is empty, and empty is the field.
Is everyone still asleep? No, Nag the horse is awake.
He is hot, the wretch.
Fortunately, he is in the stable, not in the full sun.
Because otherwise he would melt! (If a horse could melt with heat.)]
You can buy the Boer Boris books in bookstores, but they are also available as e-books and, of course, you can borrow them from any library. In this video below, you can meet the two creators of Boer Boris.