HARVEY SCHMIDT

Winner of the Newbery Award (1954) and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal (1962)

“What has gone into this book? Three things.

“There was my first teacher, a master storyteller, who, from the first day of my schooling, told me and the class the mighty tales from the Old Testament. We sat listening to him, and we sat like rocks, in a stillness of suspense and absorption – nothing must escape us.

“Then there was my grandfather. Enchanted by my interest in books, he taught me to read even while the teller of the mighty tales was still teaching us our ABC’s. He taught me by having me read to him from the Bible, hour upon hour, evening after evening.

“And thirdly, all this was happening in Wierum, the village of my birth. It was a fishing village, and the fishermen were as vivid, violent, and picturesque as were the Bible tales told by my teacher and read to me by my grandfather.

“There they are, the three – inextricably, inevitably bound together – culminating in a book of Bible stories as I heard, read, and lived them as a child.”  --- Meindert DeJong