Read Afke's tiental in Dutchwith every sentence explained

Afke's tiental by Nienke van Hichtum was first published in 1903. In Passage you read the full text in the original Dutch, marked beginner and filed under children. It runs to about 46,000 words.

One small room. Ten children. And a mother whose love never runs out.

In a Frisian village in the depths of a freezing winter, Afke gives birth to her tenth child, little Wiebe. There is no money for a cradle, so she lines an old wooden chest with blue cloth. Her husband Marten works in the flax shed, the peat is running out, and every day ten hungry mouths must somehow be filled.

Yet this poor family is rich in other ways. Eldest daughter Wiepkje is in service in Leeuwarden, Watse is a soldier, Eeltje earns a guilder a week at the butter factory, and at home there are Klaas, Jouke, mischievous Jetse, the little girls and baby Wiebe — each with adventures of their own, from a forbidden raid on old Meint's frozen moat to a long day on the water.

Nienke van Hichtum's 1903 classic, illustrated by Cornelis Jetses, is one of the best-loved Dutch children's books, still read for its humour, warmth and quiet courage.

Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in Dutch. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:

• a natural translation of that exact sentence,
• a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
• the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
• all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.

It's marked beginner, so it's a good first whole book if you know the basics of Dutch and want something you can finish. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.