Pippa Allen

Secrets of War, c’est l’histoire d’une amitié entre deux enfants, Tuur et Lambert, âgés de 12 ans, pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Vivant dans un petit village des Pays-Bas, rien ne semble perturber leur monde insouciant de jeux d’enfant, pas même la guerre qui gronde avec ses bombardements réguliers, ni les mystérieuses inimitiés qui semblent opposer leurs parents respectifs. Lorsque Maartje, une nouvelle et belle élève, arrive dans leur classe, elle est aussitôt intégré au duo et une autre amitié à trois commence.

Kiek is worried as her father works in a war zone. To lengthen the odds of her father getting hurt, she comes up with a strange and unique idea: she needs a dead dog and a dead mouse, because Kiek doesn't know one person who has a dead mouse, a dead dog and a dead father. Surely the odds against that are enormous?

The Duch painter Vincent Van Gogh grew up in the family of a stern Calvinist country pastor, feeling a misunderstood misfit, obsessed by painting, while his elder brother Theo left for Brussels, later Paris, and became an art dealer. Vincent tried an alternative career as missionary to the Catlolic Walloon mineworkers in the Ardennes but returns, broke and failed again. Later he'll move in with Theo in Paris, but can't fit in business or society. Vincent heads for frustration and health drama. His heir, a Dutch railway engineer, later visits those places while deciding whether to sell the family paintings collection to invest in the super-fast railroad.