author
Remembered for warm, observant stories drawn from classroom life, this Dutch writer turned her years as a teacher into vivid portraits of children and schooldays. Her work feels close, humane, and full of everyday detail.
by P. J. Cohen de Vries
Paulina Jacoba "Lien" Cohen-de Vries was born in Amsterdam on April 10, 1884. Trained as a teacher from a young age, she earned her teaching certificate in 1900 and later worked at an Amsterdam school for poor children. In 1908 she married music teacher Michel Cohen, and later lived in Laren and Hilversum.
She began publishing children's books in 1920, debuting with Het Druivejurkje; een sprookje. Her best-known book, Kinderen uit m'n klas (1922), grew out of pieces first published in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant and drew on her own experiences in education. Critics at the time found her school stories so lifelike that they were recommended to girls considering becoming teachers.
Cohen-de Vries worked in several forms, including fairy tales, short stories, animal stories, girls' books, and verse. She died in Hilversum on April 19, 1923, at just 39 years old. Even so, she left behind a small but varied body of work, including Uit de school geklapt, which appeared shortly after her death.