Van Haeringen, Annemarie

Addresses

Home—Netherlands.

Career

Author and illustrator of children's books, 1985—. Exhibitions: Work exhibited in the Netherlands and elsewhere, including Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA, and UBS Gallery, New York, NY, both 2005.

Awards, Honors

Gouden Penseel awards for best children's book illustration (Netherlands), 1999, for Malmok, 2000 for De Prinses met de Lange Haren, and 2005, for Beer Is op Vlinder; Austrian children's and youth book award, 2003, for Kleine Ezel en jarige Jakkie.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Kattesprongen en Reuzestappen, Lemniscaat (Rotterdam, Netherlands), 1985.

Op Hoge Poten, Leopold (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1994.

(With Sjoerd Kuyper) Malmok, Leopold (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1999.

De Prinses met de Lange Haren, Leopold (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2000.

Beer Is op Vlinder (title means "Bear Fancies Butterfly"), [Netherlands], 2004.

ILLUSTRATOR

Hanna Kraan, Verhalen Vande Boze Heks, Lemniscaat [Netherlands], 1995, published as Tales of the Wicked Witch, Front Street (Arden, NC), 1995.

Hanna Kraan, Boze Heks Is Weer Bezig, [Netherlands], 1995, translation by Wanda Boeke published as The Wicked Witch Is at It Again!, Front Street (Arden, NC), 1997.

Hanna Kraan, Bloemen voor de Boze Heks, [Netherlands], translation by Wanda Boeke published as Flowers for the Wicked Witch, Front Street (Asheville, NC), 1998.

Rindert Kromhout, Kleine Ezel en Jarige Jakkie, Leopold (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2003, translation by Marianne Martens published as Little Donkey and the Birthday Present, North-South Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Rindert Kromhout, Kleine Ezel en de Oppas, [Netherlands], translation by Marianne Martens published as Little Donkey and the Baby-Sitter, North-South Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Sidelights

Annemarie van Haeringen is one of the Netherlands' best-known children's book illustrators. A three-time winner of the Gouden Penseel award—the Netherlands' most prestigious prize for illustrators—van Haeringen creates pencil-and-color cartoons that are equally suited to animal characters acting like humans, and humans themselves, particularly princesses and witches. According to Gay Lynn Van Vleck in School Library Journal, van Haeringen's works "are captivating in their simplicity and amusing details." Several books featuring van Haeringen's art have been translated into En-

glish and published in America, and her stylized artwork has been cited as a principal part of their Transatlantic appeal.

Van Haeringen's art appears in the picture books by Hanna Kraan: Tales of the Wicked Witch, The Wicked Witch Is at It Again, and Flowers for the Wicked Witch. The witch of these books is not particularly wicked, and she is also somewhat inept with her magic. Rather than fearing her wrath, the forest animals alternately pull tricks on the witch and woo her with gifts, ignoring her threats to turn them into pine cones. Each book contains short stories that intertwine but can also be read individually. In Booklist, Stephanie Zvirin described Tales of the Wicked Witch as "a simple charmer that never turns saccharine," and a Publishers Weekly reviewer felt that van Haeringen's art "injects a refreshing note of whimsy" into Kraan's tale.

Little Donkey, a popular van Haeringen character, is introduced to American readers in Little Donkey and the Baby-Sitter and Little Donkey and the Birthday Present, both featuring a text by Rindert Kromhout. In the first book, the crafty donkey bamboozles his baby-sitter, who seems perfectly content to allow him to act out. In the second, Little Donkey faces a dilemma when he chooses a birthday gift for a friend—he likes the gift so much he does not want to give it away. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that van Haeringen's illustrations for Little Donkey and the Baby-Sitter "bubble with a knowing playfulness," and a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded that her artwork for Little Donkey and the Birthday Present is "vastly appealing."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 1996, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Tales of the Wicked Witch, p. 834; September 15, 1997, Susan Dove Lempke, review of The Wicked Witch Is at It Again, p. 235; November 15, 1998, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Flowers for the Wicked Witch, p. 591; May 1, 2007, Hazel Rochman, review of Little Donkey and the Birthday Present, p. 98.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2007, review of Little Donkey and the Birthday Present.

Publishers Weekly, December 11, 1995, review of Tales of the Wicked Witch, p. 71; April 10, 2006, review of Little Donkey and the Baby-Sitter, p. 70.

School Library Journal, July, 2006, Gay Lynn Van Vleck, review of Little Donkey and the Baby-Sitter, p. 81; April, 2007, Kristen M. Todd, review of Little Donkey and the Birthday Present, p. 110.

ONLINE

Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature Web site,http://www.nlpvf.nl/ (September 8, 2008), "Austrian Children's Book Prizes 2003"; "Gouden Penseel 2005 for Annemarie van Haeringen."