Meindert DeJong
Meindert De Jong was an award-winning author of children's books. He was born in the village of Wierum, of the province of Friesland, in the Netherlands.
De Jong immigrated to the United States with his family in 1914. He attended Dutch Calvinist secondary schools and Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and entered the University of Chicago, but left without graduating.
He held various jobs during the Great Depression, and it was at the suggestion of a local librarian that he began writing children's books. His first book The Big Goose and the Little White Duck was published in 1938.
He wrote several more books before joining the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, serving in China. After the war he resumed writing, and for several years resided in Mexico. He returned for a time to Michigan. After settling in North Carolina, he returned to Michigan for the final years of his life.
“Until the longing came again, like the longing that you hear in the whistle of a train that is going far away. But the longing isn't really in the whistle, the longing is in you—for the wonder and the loveliness that is in the world, and everywhere.”
“The restlessness and the longing, like the longing that is in the whistle of a faraway train. Except that the longing isn't really in the whistle—it is in you.”
“if you just go on dreaming then it stays a dream and becomes stale and dead. But first to dream and then to do isn't that the way to make a dream come true”