GREAT DAY IN HOLLAND: The Skating Race

The distinctive style of illustrator Robert Nix fails to lift this attempt at a story above the level of geography book exposition. It is supposed to be about an important ice skating race in Holland told by Yelle, a boy whose older brother is one of the skaters. The customs surrounding the Eleven Towns Race come out in time-schedule sequence, but the tension and excitement that any sort of race generates is neither captured nor communicated. The fictional devices of characters and dialogue fail to make this into a story. Rather, it is a Lands, People and Daily Living sort of insert for units on the Netherlands.