بهمن

by An Rutgers van der Loeff, حسین ابراهیمی (Translator)

پدر و پسری تلاش میکنند به کوهستان رفته افرادی که زیر برف گیر کرده اند را نجات دهند

Genres: Fiction, Childrens, Adventure, Dutch Literature, Classics, 20th Century, Historical Fiction

244 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

An Rutgers van der Loeff-Basenau was een Nederlands schrijfster. Ze publiceerde ook onder het pseudoniem Rutger Bas.

An Rutgers van der Loeff in de Nederlandse Wikipedia: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Rutg...

Anna Rutgers van der Loeff (1910–1990) was a Dutch writer of children's novels.

Some of her works have been translated into other languages, including English.

Possibly her most popular novel was the 1963 Children on the Oregon Trail (De Kinderkaravaan), an account of a family of children traveling with a pioneer caravan to Oregon in the mid-19th century, loosely based on the real incident of the Sager orphans.

An Rutgers van der Loeff in the English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Ru...

Reviews

[Yellowoasis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book at school in the early 70s and since I've begun to study children's literature I've had this vague notion of revisiting the books of my childhood - especially the school set books that, frankly, I didn't enjoy much at the time. It will be interesting to see how these books stack up against contemporary children's fiction.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like stories of plucky isolated children overcome natural disasters, but this one fell short....it was mostly the characters being shunted from one avalanche to another, with little chance for them to actually do anything interesting (except for a few isolated instances).

[Josephine Draper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not sure what I was expecting of this book. I have fond memories of Children on the Oregon Trail, An Rutger van der Loeff's other famous book - a children's adventure story where kids save themselves, and I suppose on the face of it this is somewhat similar. The plot involves a group of war orphans on a skiing holiday in the Swiss Alps who become caught up in an avalanche. We follow them as they engage with locals, try to evade hazards, navigate the aftermath of a disaster, and help with the rescue efforts.

The sections where the children are in immediate danger are the most powerful and pacey, but they are unfortunately interspersed with a couple of sections of people kind of milling around aimlessly in the aftermath of the disaster dealing with their own personal issues. It's not until a fresh character is introduced that the pace picks up a bit.

I felt that it didn't quite work either as a children's book, or for adults. For children, the introspective stuff was somewhat overworked at the cost of the action. Are kids really going to engage with Werner's career goals or Aunt Augusta's loneliness, or would they rather have more life or death situations? On the other hand, read as an adult, I enjoyed the final chapter where you see some real character development of the main players - but there was too little too late.

I could absolutely envisage this being read in a classroom in installments, where the suspense would be built day by day, but I got strangely disengaged in the middle of the book. Perhaps I'm just too old for it.

[Hv2go · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gouden griffel 1954. (destijds "kinderboek van het jaar").
Goed geschreven boek. In het taalgebruik hier en daar wat gedateerd.
Spannend verhaal over de mensen in een dorpje die te maken krijgen met lawines en de gevolgen daarvan. Onder hen bevindt zich een groep oorlogswezen.
Kan het boek nu nog steeds voorgelezen worden?
Ik zeg ja, met een kleine "maar". Er is wel wat achtergrond nodig, even uitleggen dat dit zich in het verleden afspeelt, geen computers etc. en dat het Pestalozzi dorp daadwerkelijk bestaat en dat de reacties van de jongens in het boek soms 'vreemd' aandoen, maar dat het oorlogswezen zijn die (zoals dat heet) het een ander meegemaakt hebben (nog steeds actueel).
Jonge mensen die ooit op wintersport geweest zijn, zullen zich nog meer kunnen inleven in wat een lawine is en wat het kan doen (natuurkrachten).

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5/5

Ik begon met vrij hoge verwachtingen aan het voorlezen van dit boek. De opzet is avontuurlijk en belooft veel, en van der Loeffs 'de Kinderkaravaan' had ik eerder met veel plezier met mijn kinderen gelezen. Toch vonden we 'Lawines razen' wat tegenvallen. Er zitten zeker spannende stukken in, maar deze worden (te vaak) afgewisseld door soms lange, lege conversaties en saaie delen. De kwaliteit is niet consistent hoog - ik en mijn kind vonden het boek duidelijk minder leuk dan 'de Kinderkaravaan'. Ik weet niet zeker of ik dit boek in de toekomst ook aan mijn jongere kind wil voorlezen.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only realised recently that A. Rutgers van der Loeff was a woman. Another trip down memory lane from my lovely trip to Wigtown.

[Hannah K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite books as a child, and I picked it up again the other day. Fun to read back through such a fun, heartfelt story!

[Floor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik neig zelfs naar 5 sterren, wat best een prestatie is voor een boek van ruim 60 jaar oud

[Jo Beale]

1981 edition, Dan's ?

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a gorgeous wee book! Free to read on the Internet Archive.

Really touching characterisation and insight into that post-WWII world full of orphans and international children.

[José Van Rosmalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dit boek maakte destijds veel indruk op mij.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars - good

This book was really good, but I'm docking it half-a-star because. . . More on this in a bit.

This is the story of Werner Altschwank, who lives with his parents in Urteli, Switzerland. It's winter and the village is about to be evacuated because of avalanche danger when an avalanche happens and buries several families, including Werner's.

Werner is rescued, but his parents could not be immediately found. Luckily, Werner and his father had gone up the nearby mountain to warn a group of boys and their teacher not to return via the path they took to get up there. Instead, they led them down in a safer way. . .

But that way wasn't 100% safe and Werner and another boy were buried in an avalanche. They were rescued, though.

Then later there was the avalanche that buried Werner's family.

Urteli was evacuated but the search continued for Werner's parents. They were found alive after 57 hours in the snow.

Werner, meanwhile, was in Glarmatt with the boys from the mountain, who were all war orphans from "the Children's Village" in Trogen. While there, avalanches continued to happen in the mountains and soon more rescued-and-evacuated people arrived in Glarmatt,

One of the new arrivals was a young boy, Klaus, who was majorly distraught at being dragged away from the rescue efforts, which were called off at night due to the avalanche risk.

So one of the Children's Village boys, Paolo, got together with Werner and they recruited some of the other boys and headed up to Klaus's village to try to find Klaus's family.

They successfully found where his little sister was last known to be. By that time, the sun was rising and the rescuers returned. The rescuers rescued the little girl, and then "rescued" the boys, who all collapsed from exhaustion.

They all lived, though Klaus's parents were found dead. In the summer, Werner said goodbye to Urteli and paid a visit to the boys in Trogen.

And that brings me to the end, which left me feeling dissatisfied. Werner and Paolo stole away from the rest of the boys for a talk. Paolo shared the news that Klaus and his little sister were coming to live in the Children's Village and Werner asked Paolo for help finding him a job in Trogen.

Paolo excitedly tells Werner that there is a job for him. He pulls Werner to his feet and runs off, but in his haste he trips and Werner falls on top of him.

Werner had never felt so happy and carefree. Everything was part of it: the blue summer sky, the flowers, the buzzing of the bees, Paolo lying there in the grass, and the prospect of living among friends, friends from all over the world. [fin]

I didn't like this ending because. . .I guess we're supposed to imagine Werner getting the job and everyone living happily after? I would rather have seen Werner get the job and be congratulated by all of the boys.

The reason why I'm docking this story a half-star is because there was an awful lot of yelling going on. In the beginning, we were told, on page 13, that. . . "Even a shout can suddenly loosen the treacherously piled mass of snow..." And this was after the son of someone "shouted," and then later when the boys were hiking and digging and whatnot, in villages under threat from avalanches, they shouted, too! And nothing happened!

Every time Paolo or Klaus or one of the other boys raised their voices, I expected an avalanche to come along and bury them. But time after time, nothing happened. I found this very disappointing after the earlier warning from page 13. :-(

So for me, this story was just 3.5-stars-good.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I wanted to read for years. It was awarded in 1955 and I remember it was in the school library, but I never was able to borrow it, because it was always lent.
It's a book for older children, but not YA. For years I remembered the title, but as I grew older I focused on books. Thanks to internet I could buy a second hand copy with exactly the same dust jacket I remembered.


The book tells the story of Werner Altschwank and his family, who live in a small village in the Swiss Alps. After heavy snowfall and avalanche warnings, Werner and his father bring a group of young skiers back to the village. That night the village is hit by an avalanche and Werner's house is completely destroyed. He is rescued and is brought to a safer place, together with the group of young skiers, who come from a Pestalozzi-village: a village of orphaned war-children after World War II.
One of the youngster, an Italian boy, becomes his friend. Werner is in shock, because he thinks his parents are dead, Paolo, his new friend, helps him in his grief. When all hope is lost, Werner gets the message that his parents are found and brought to a hospital.
A new boy, Klaus, is brought in. He only cries and accuses his recuers that they have been looking at the wrong place to search for his parents and little sister. Werner and the boy from the Pestalozzi-village decide to go the place where Klaus' house has been covered by a avalanche and try to find the boy's family. They succeed to rescue the little sister, but later the parents are found dead. Klaus goes to his grandparents and Marieli goes to Werner's old village to live with his old aunt, who has saved the little girl because she was the only one in the group of evacuees, who had the same blood group as the girl. But Marieli and Klaus aren't happy living separate. Werner and Paolo make a plan and by the end of the book Klaus and his sister become new inhabitants of the Pestalozzi-village.
After having finished his training as an electrician Werner gets a job in the village with his friend Paolo.

It is a story with a happy end which was normal during the period when it was written and there also a moralistic background story: never give up hope, and friends should always help each other, but it was a nice read. I enjoyed it.

[Frankie Mahrle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in 1968, long before I saw On Her Majesty's Secret Service (which contains an avalanche). I don't remember much, but I remember I kept checking it out of the library, so I must have wanted to finish it. I'm a slow reader. Sorry.

[Elseline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het is erg spanned en moeilijk neer te leggen als je begint. Het is soms een beetje triest maar de einde is gelukkig en leuk.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really wonderful, complex characterisation, and full of optimism without ever being rose tinted.

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this back in 1968 or 1969 when I was a 5th grader. I remember feeling great suspense knowing that the big avalanche was coming up, somewhere on one of the next pages.