The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong

The task of finding a wagon wheel in the tiny village proves difficult, and the children meet several interesting personalities during their search. They discovered that the roofs on the village's homes are pitched so steeply that the storks cannot find space to nest on the sharp ridges, and placing a wagon wheel on each roof ridge would give storks a place to nest.

The children set out to bring the storks back. Their teacher encourages the class to find out for themselves. When she writes an essay for school that asks why there are no storks in their village, she set all the others to wondering. The dedication reads: 'To my nieces, Shirley and Beverly, and their flying fingers'.Lina is one of six school children in the small fishing village of Shora. Other characters include the fathers of the children, who are all fishermen Lina's aunt, who lives in Nes Evert, the man living across from Lina's aunt Lina and Auka's younger siblings, Linda and Jan Jana, Janus's wife and the mothers of the children. These six kids are aided by their teacher, Grandmother Sibble III, legless Janus, old Douwa, and the 'tin man'. The schoolchildren are: Lina, the only girl in the small school Jella, the biggest of all the children Auka, an average boy Eelka, who is fat and awkward and Pier and Dirk, the inseparable twins. This simple, yet compelling plot teaches that if people think and wonder why, things will begin to happen and dreams will come true.

When she writes an essay for school that asks why there are no storks in their village, she sets all the others to wondering. Lina is one of six school children in the small fishing village of Shora. The book was illustrated by noted author and illustrator Maurice Sendak.įred Inglis, in his book The Promise of Happiness: Value and Meaning in Children's Fiction, writes that the book invokes the ancient pieties and the values of the old world and makes them 'imaginable in the new.' Plot summary The Wheel on the School is a novel by Meindert DeJong, a Dutch-born American, that won the 1955 Newbery Medal for children's literature and the 1957 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.

The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong