Nikolaas Tinbergen’s children’s book Kleew (1947): the story of a herring gull

Abstract

In September 1942, the pioneering ethologist Nikolaas (Niko) Tinbergen (1907–1988), together with other intellectuals who had protested against the expulsion of Jewish academics from Leiden University, The Netherlands, by the invading Nazi forces, was incarcerated in Beekvliet hostage camp in North Brabant. In his weekly letters home Tinbergen wrote Klieuw, the serialized story of a herring gull ( Larus argentatus), based on his previous field work, for his three children. Another inmate in the camp, Louis (L. J. C.) Boucher, a publisher, encouraged Tinbergen to publish the story as a book. Tinbergen and his fellow prisoners were released in September 1944 and with academic life returning to normal, Tinbergen went on a three-month lecture tour to the United States in 1946. It was there that the book, translated into English, was first published in 1947 under the title Kleew. The Dutch edition titled appeared a year later and was more successful than the English version, with many adults and children reading and memorizing the book’s contents. Because of Tinbergen’s extraordinary clarity of expression, Klieuw was considered one of the best Dutch children’s books of its time.