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kairros11's review against another edition
1.0
I hated this book. The story of Hans Brinker itself is fine. What I detested was the break from the main story to follow a group of boys with too much time on their hands exploring Amsterdam and pointing out "fun facts" of art and history. Not incredibly well-written either.
summermsmith's review against another edition
3.0
I feel torn, because I was really looking forward to reading this book, because it is about Holland (and I'm half Dutch)... but it was really slow reading. I listened to it on CD and it seemed to take forever. Although, there were parts of it that I could almost hear my Grandpa vander Wal telling the story and that was fun to hear!
kairros's review against another edition
1.0
I hated this book. The story of Hans Brinker itself is fine. What I detested was the break from the main story to follow a group of boys with too much time on their hands exploring Amsterdam and pointing out "fun facts" of art and history. Not incredibly well-written either.
maxandrambo's review against another edition
4.0
Well, this was a delightful surprise. While reading this heartwarming seasonal story (with heaps of adventure woven in), you're also going to casually learn a lot about Holland (now better known as the Netherlands.) Particularly refreshing was the way this story written in the 1800s consistently pointed out the efforts of women anytime an important battle was described.
gracer's review against another edition
4.0
I liked this book a lot more than I expected to! I thought it was a simple children's book about Dutch kids, but it turns out Hans Brinker is basically used to add some adventure to a book that is actually more like a child's history of the Netherlands, made really fun by the exciting historical events it talks about, and made adventurous by all of the skating and strange/exotic vehicles and foods and sights. At first I thought it was a little stereotypical, and although there are definitely some generalizations, they didn't seem so bad after the first 20-30 pages.
imperfectcj's review
3.0
My kids and I enjoyed listening to the audio version of this book. It was fun hearing references to some of the events we learned about in our history lessons, but even my kids found it a little difficult to believe that the characters were so apt to do the right thing even when it was unpleasant to do so.
thebookishbabbler's review
4.0
This book was bittersweet and thoroughly adorable. It certainly had it's sad moment but it also had joyous ones. This was the perfect book to get me into the Christmas mood!