Dutch · Intermediate
Read Boefje in Dutchwith every sentence explained
English title: Boefje (The Little Rascal)
M.J. Brusse · 1903
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About the book
Boefje by M.J. Brusse was first published in 1903. In Passage you read the full text in the original Dutch, marked intermediate and filed under historical fiction, mystery and crime and young adult. It runs to about 46,100 words.
Eleven years old. A thief, a liar, a street fighter. And impossible not to love.
In a gloomy courtyard of the Rotterdam slums, where children crawl over the cobbles and the men wait for ships that no longer come, lives Jan Grovers — “Boefje”, the little rascal. He steals from his old grandmother, bites policemen, sets the curtains on fire and roams the streets all night. His worn-out mother says he is growing up for the gallows.
The narrator, a volunteer for the children's charity Pro Juventute, is given Jan as his very first case. With a list of the boy's misdeeds in his pocket he climbs the dark stairs to meet him — and slowly wins the trust of a bright, wild, warm-hearted child whom nobody has ever really given a chance.
Full of salty Rotterdam dialect, M.J. Brusse's Boefje (1903) was a huge success and was filmed in 1939 by Detlef Sierck, soon to be famous in Hollywood as Douglas Sirk.
- Author
- M.J. Brusse
- First published
- 1903
- Language
- Dutch
- Level
- Intermediate
- Genre
- Historical Fiction, Mystery and Crime, Young Adult
- Length
- About 46,100 words
How it opens
Jan was 't eerste klantje van Pro Juventute dat ik voor mijn rekening kreeg. En met de lijst van al zijn boosdoenerijen in m'n zak ging ik kennis met 'm maken.
Zijn ouders woonden op 'n hofje: in een zeurig vale armeluisstraat een donkere poort door; daar stonden de sjofelste woningen achterafgezet, vol als konijnenhokken, om een kaal drassig sintelveldje. Zoo'n poort, waar de vrouwen, afgesloofd op hun rellige kamers, even wat afleiding zoeken in de relazen van elkanders eindelooze zorgen, en uit de trieste grauwheid van 't hofje uitzien naar 't léven en 't licht in de straat.
Reading Boefje in Passage
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 intermediate: comfortable once everyday Dutch feels familiar, with the harder sentences one tap away. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.
