When this house floods

When this house floods (Dutch: “Als dit huis straks overstroomt”) is a novel for young adults with the constant threat of climate change in the background.

It tells the story of four friends, all with a different perspective on the world and the future, trying to make the most of their life and that of their generation. Which mostly means trying to prevent the dikes from breaking and the sea from flooding their whole town.

This book is only available in Dutch.

What’s special?

Lots of things!

• It’s my first (officially published) novel. (Previous works were non-fiction or picturebooks.)
• It’s my longest work thus far.
• Each chapter starts with an illustration. (A structure that I’ve never seen before, but which is actually essential to the story.)

I didn’t want to write a boring activist speech on climate change. But I also didn’t want to stay silent on this huge issue, already affecting us heavily.

As such, I strived for a balance between informing the reader and showing different perspectives, and simply writing a tense, interesting, emotional, grounded story. Hopefully, I succeeded.