Author
Meindert De Jong
5 books here
Hurry Home, Candy
Middle grade · ages 8–12 · 720L · 1971
A quiet, genuinely moving dog-finds-her-way story that treats loss and belonging seriously without melodrama—De Jong's prose is spare and observant, and it sticks with kids who've felt displaced or homeless themselves.
The House of Sixty Fathers
Middle grade · ages 8–12 · 780L · 1987
A Newbery Honor that holds up—spare, dignified, and unsentimental about a child's wartime displacement; worth the reading challenge and the serious conversations it invites.
Shadrach
Middle grade · ages 8–12 · 720L · 1953
A quiet, deliberate book about patience and animal trust that holds up remarkably well; De Jong's prose is lyrical without being sentimental, and the ending doesn't dodge real loss.
The Wheel on the School
Middle grade · ages 8–12 · 780L · 1987
A quiet, methodical book about rural Dutch children solving a concrete problem together—rewards patient readers with genuine wonder and a real sense of how community action works.
Along Came a Dog
Middle grade · ages 8–12 · 720L · 1999
A quietly profound meditation on how trust and belonging are earned through consistency and presence; the prose is lyrical without being precious, and the farm setting grounds the emotional arc.