"Take care of the little riders," says Johanna's father to the eleven-year-old when he leaves her with his parents for an extended vacation in their Dutch village. And Johanna does. She loves the twelve metal figures on horseback who ride forth each hour from the clock on the ancient church tower. She would do anything to protect them, anything. And on night she risks her life to prove it.
Set during the Second World War when the German army occupied Holland.
Margaretha Shemin (b.1928) was born in Alkmaar, the Netherlands, and educated at the University of Leiden. She moved to America, and worked as a children’s librarian while producing her books. All her titles are set in Holland, and all aim to challenge stereotypes of the Dutch and their country. Her stories The Empty Moat (1969) and The Little Riders (1963) were based on her own experiences during World War II, when her doctor father was active in the Dutch resistance. The Little Riders is, just about, a horse story: it tells of a child’s struggle to save something that has become totemic to her: the leaden horses and riders from the church tower. The book was made into a film by Disney in 1996.
