Mary Dodge (1831-1905)

Mary Dodge was an American writer. She wrote books for children. The book “The Silver Skates” is about a boy, Hans, and his sister, Gretel, who lived in a small town in Holland. Mary Dodge first told this story to her two little sons. The boys liked the story very much and often asked their mother to repeat it. So she decided to write down the story and take it to a publisher. The publisher read the story, liked it, and published it. When her book came out in 1865, the readers also liked it very much.

Mary Dodge visited Holland only after her book came out, but she knew a lot about the country and its people, the Dutch, from books on geography. She loved Holland.