Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates (Tor Classics) - Softcover

From glistening ice roads to frozen canals, in a wonderland where even the richest nobles thrill to the gliding joys of winter, "everyone" is awaiting the fabulous race to win the magnificent Silver Skates -- "Except Hans Brinker and his sister Gretel. "For the Brinkers are desperately poor, friendless; with a father felled by a crippling head wound, Mother and the children must battle simply to survive. And while Hans and Gretel are strong, fast, disciplined, and loyal...on hand-crafted wooden skates, they can't complete against trained rich kids with fine steel blades... But sometimes...sometimes...good people "are" given a chance. Sometimes strangers "do "care. And sometimes a family's love and loyalty can struggle against even the cruelest twists of fate... Sometimes...

Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge was born in New York in 1831. Her Grandmother was Dutch, and Mary Elizabeth grew up in the center of a strong and properous family. She died in 1905 after a long illness but Hans Brinker lives on.