The story of the little boy who averted a flood disaster by sticking his finger in the dyke is famous all over the world . Mary Mapes Dodge (1831 - 1905), an American author of children's books, wrote the story around 1865. It was included in a volume of stories published under the title The silver skates, a story of life in Holland. This book contains various romantic stories about adventures of children in the Netherlands. The pivotal story is that of Hans Brinker, a poor boy about ten years of age, and his younger sister  Gretel who try to win an ice skating race. The first price of the race is a pair of silver skates. These they don't wish to keep for themselves but plan to sell. With the money they can buy medicine to cure their sick dad. It is cold and very far and Gretel wins the race and the skates.

The boy who stuck his finger in the dyke goes without a name in the book. We are told only that he is about eight years old, that his father is a lockmaster and that the family lives near Haarlem. One day our anonymous hero discovers a leak in the dyke. The dyke is about to burst any moment. The little boy doesn't think twice but sticks his finger in the hole. The water stops flowing. There he is, with nobody around to help the little hero. Evening comes and then night falls. It gets colder and colder. Apparently nobody in his family thinks of going to look for the little fellow. The result is that the child, numb with cold, is not found until morning, by the vicar. Now his father and the authorities quickly take action and all ends well. By a curious whim of fate the anonymous hero erroneously became known under the name of Hans Brinker. It was not Mary Mapes Dodge who gave him that name, but unknown readers who couldn't remember the names of the heroes in the book and got them mixed up.

Its writer probably didn't foresee that the story would become such a huge success. It was frequently reissued and adapted. Already in 1867 an adapted Dutch translation appeared of the story about the ice skating race, by P.J. Andriessen, probably the most famous Dutch writer of children's books at the time. It would take another century before the complete original story was published in Dutch.

When the book was on sale in American bookshops for the first time, there was great interest in the Netherlands. In this period of 'Holland-Mania' numerous American children, who had never been to the Netherlands, became acquainted with Dutch rural life. The writer of the story had never been to the Netherlands either. Although she had done some research into life in that damp little country, she showed a preference for romantic and not always accurate historical information. The image that Mary depicted of the Netherlands did not correspond with reality. But that didn't matter at all. It made the book even more attractive to many readers.

The National Library of the Netherlands has recently (2004) received a very special collection of children's books. Hendrik Edelman was looking for a suitable location and decided to donate his carefully built-up collection to KB. Edelman was born in the Netherlands but moved to America in 1967, where he worked as a librarian, bibliographer and book historian.