First ever English translation of his classic, the Dutch cult book "Kees de jongen," the world seen through the eyes of a lower middle class boy of lively fantasy and intelligence. Has the mind of a twelve-year-old ever been so intimately, so comprehensively, so compassionately exposed? With its delicious irony and its well dosed sentiment, had it been written by Chekhov this novel would have been one of his major works. No less an authority than the current doyen of Dutch literature, Remco Campert, has deemed it one of the best ever written (and he wasn't thinking of Dutch literature only). The novel has all the charm and couleur locale of Amsterdam at the turn of the 19th century, when winters were severe, lamps burned on paraffin and carriages and street cars were horse drawn, but for sheer economy and pace of the narrative it could have been written yesterday.'