Meindert Dejong

Meindert DeJong was born in Friesland, in the Netherlands, in 1906. He was descended from noble French Huguenot families who fled to Friesland during the persecutions. The DeJong family went to Michigan, USA, in 1914. Meindert worked as a college professor, a gravedigger, mason, tinner, sexton and bricklayer, all the while he was working to establish himself as a writer. In 1962 he was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal – an international award for his entire work, rather that for a single book. His best-known books in the UK are The House of Sixty Fathers and The Wheel on the School.