Thuis bij Betty & Cat At Home is a new book for bilingual children about the life of Betty, a Dutch-speaking dog, and Cat, who speaks English.

The book, written by Hennie Jacobs and illustrated by Madeleine van der Raad, was released in November last year and we received a review copy.

Targeting bilingual children -- and their relatives

Hennie Jacobs explains: "I originally targeted the book to grandparents, aunts and uncles of children being brought up bilingually - I thought they might feel left out of the bilingual experience, if their English wasn't so hot any more. It was meant to be read together. For example, one person taking on the role of the cat, the other the dog -- the book is not translated."

Hennie Jacobs herself became bilingual virtually overnight at the age of six as a Dutch immigrant to Montreal. An advertising copywriter, Hennie teaches English as a second language.

Betty and Cat really do exist, and the are the inspiration for the book. It is quite popular: "In fact, it turns out it's a big hit for mixed-language couples, in which the non-Dutch speaker may feel left out. We did a reading at The English Bookshop in Amsterdam in April, and that's who was there: mum's whose husbands are Dutch, whose kids are in Dutch schools, and who are learning Dutch. This book lets them participate, and builds confidence."

A review by 3-year old Stephanie

Stephanie, a bilingual 3-year old who we asked to do a review, greatly enjoyed the book. John, her father, explains: "Stephanie finished reading the book. It's a great concept, and it was fun to see how Betty the dog speaks Dutch and Cat English. The story is mainly about the difference between cats and dogs. Stephanie enjoys stories about animals, especially talking animals.

From my perspective as a father who is raising his daughter bilingually in an English-language environment, I noticed that Stephanie was a bit confused at first: normally I try hard to only speak Dutch with her and I make a point of always reading to her in Dutch. With that, switching language on every page was a little strange in the beginning. But in the same way as Dora Explorer (who speaks English and Spanish here in the U.S.), it turned out to be no problem at all for Stephanie."

Over-all, it's highly recommended, especially for parents of young polyglots!"

Plans for a series

The book is an easy read at 24 pages; subsequent books are meant to be 28 pages. Hennie says she is planning to write several more in the series: "There is a second written, In het Bos met Betty & Cat in the Forest, and a third, which I feel is a bit noir: Naar de Kennel met Betty & Cat in the Kennel."

Thuis bij Betty & Cat At Home
Hennie Jacobs and Madeleine van der Raad
November 2011
24 pages, $9.95 (shipping to the U.S.: $3.15)
http://www.bettyandcat.com/

Yesterday Nora turned 3 months old. She is growing up fast. She can hold her head up, follow our voices and this week she started folding her hands together and playing with her fingers.

It is wonderful to spend time with her. She likes it when we make noise (I am particularly good at this) and will laugh out loud at our jokes and singing.

Over the last few weeks I have worked on a new version of this website. The most important goal of my website is to stay in touch with family and friends, but it also serves as an online business card for my work as software engineering manager. And, to be honest, the site was getting a lit bit old and needed a fresh lick of virtual paint. Most importantly, I wanted to make the site work better on mobile phones and on the iPad.

In April I read Ethan Marcotte's Responsive Web Design and that inspired me to work on a new Drupal theme. I based it on Dave Gamache's Skeleton CSS framework and modified it to my needs. This is the first major redesign since March 2007.

The changes

• Anonymous users now go to a new landing page, instead of going to the blog
• Logged in users will continue to see the blog as the main page. This way, there is a specific a page that I can tailor for people that don't know me in person, with a focus on my business persona.
• The HTML is completely HTML5 compliant (I need to take care of 1 last non-validating item, related to the Boost caching mechanism)
• The layout of the website is now mobile-friendly. You can see the effect by resizing the window of your browser. It gently collapses into a single row of nicely readable text. A couple of smart tricks around the menu (using CSS3 media queries) does the rest.
• Last but not least, after 12 years I am updating the icons on the site.

New icons

With the new style of the website came the realization that the old icons were, well, old. I created them myself over the years and there wasn't a lot of consistency between them. Moreover, they were created with a size limitations of 32x32 pixels and there's no way to scale them up since I created them as bitmaps.

In my previous job we worked with an off-shore company that creates icons, and for a small fee we got access to a library of many hundreds of thousands of icons. I started looking for something similar and ultimately decided on using Odesk.com, a global job marketplace, to find a contractor. I placed a contract and received 9 bids, of which I selected Hungary based freelancer Zsolt Markus.

He did a great job and recreated many of my icons as vector images, with a good eye for detail. The icons are now on the site, in a 64x64 pixel format, and if I ever want to resize them or tweak them I now have Adobe Illustrator vector files available.

Still to do

There are still a couple of bugs to work out. If you come across any issues, please let me know. Here is a list of things I'm working on:

• Formatting of top menu on the iPad is not correct (for logged in users)
• The input field for comments is very small
• The login form on the /welcome page doesn't work yet.

It was fun to redesign the site, and learn something about HTML5 and CSS3 in the process. If you come across any problems or have any suggestions, please let me know.

Yesterday was Sasha's first Mother's Day.

We celebrated with a brunch on our balcony; Nora joined us in her chair next to the table.

Dutch-language newspaper The Windmill Herald will cease operations next month, according to publisher Albert van der Heide. The newspaper, which under various names has been in operation since 1954, has seen its readers number dwindle due to demographic developments and has not been self-supporting for several years.

In an interview with the Dutch International Society yesterday:

"We were able to slow the effects of a nearly inevitable greying readership with an English-language section in The Windmill Herald," said Albert van der Heide who purchased the paper in 1969, five years after coming to Canada as a teenager. "We keep hearing from grandchildren of 1950s Dutch immigrants interested in their heritage and roots, but not enough to sustain the paper in its current format," he said."

The paper, which is published twice-a-month, dipped increasingly into red ink as the Canadian dollar moved to parity with its U.S. counterpart and as postal rates and technology costs going up.

The only remaining Dutch-language newspaper for North America is now De Krant, whose publisher we interviewed in August 2011.

Open letter

The publisher made the announcement with an open letter in this week's edition:

"Over the past four years, there have been numerous reports of newspapers and magazines ceasing to publish, citing various reason, including declining subscriber numbers, shrinking advertising income and rising costs. The Windmill Herald has not been immune from these either. The hard truth of the matter is that the Windmill Herald has not been self-supporting for a number of years. We have come to the conclusion that a turn-around is not likely any time soon. Hence the decision to cease publication.

We are very grateful for the significant support The Windmill Herald received over the years. Collectively, subscribers took care of over half our annual budget. That was the case in 1970 and that remains the case today, no doubt the envy of most specialty newspaper publishers. Similarly, the (Dutch immigrant) business community has been very supportive throughout the years. The readership and the advertisers were huge positive factors in our ability to publish without any interruptions. Also the Windmill Herald's suppliers, employees and contributors played their roles very well. They all deserve a round of applause.

Founded in 1954 in Ontario as Hollandia News and in 1958 in British Columbia as Goed Nieuws with regional readerships, the Windmill Herald gained, thanks to reader involvement in the 1970's and forward, a significant continent-wide readership, served by three editions, Western Canada, Central and Atlantic Canada, and the USA. Without this help from the subscribers, the Windmill Herald would definitely not have survived this long.

The Windmill Herald (Western Canada edition) was first published as Goed Nieuws in 1958. The Windmill Herald (Central and Atlantic Canada edition) as Hollandia News in 1954. Windmill Herald (USA edition) was launched in 1990 and the English section, later supplement the Windmill Post, in April 1980.

[..]

In closing, it has been a privilege to serve the community in this capacity for exactly 43 years. As publisher of The Windmill Herald, I thank my family for their unwavering support of the decades. We acknowledge the Giver of all Life as the One who gave us the ability, strength and courage, this in spite of a serious health challenge in 1980. Please join me in giving Him all the Glory, and attribute any and all of the many shortcomings to me.

A. A. (Albert) van der Heide
Publisher and Editor"

I was going down in the elevator to pick up some stuff from the car, and I had Nora in my arms. An older couple joined us in the elevator, and the woman immediately smiled when she saw Nora. The usual baby-conversation started a little different this time: "how old is he?".

In a split second I had to decide whether to correct her mistake, probably guided by Nora's non-pink outfit, or just let it go. I smiled and replied: "oh, two months". She smiled again and said: "oh, see, he's looking around!".

When they left the elevator she proclaimed: "Such a handsome boy!"

Friday night there was a borrel in Frontpage in Arlington, and it was a fun evening. It was a prelude to tonight's Queen's Day celebration and a lot of the same people were there. It's a nice group and both evenings were a lot of fun.

The celebration at the Embassy tonight was very large with several hundred guests. It is a combination of a business event and a social party, with copious amounts of Dutch food including kaas soufflés, a personal favorite.

Prime Minister Rutte has offered the resignation of his cabinet to the Queen, preparing the country for new elections in September. The proposed restrictions on dual citizenship for Dutch citizens are now on hold. This is great news for Dutch citizens abroad who were at risk of being unable to keep their Dutch citizenship when applying for that of their new home countries.

Dual citizenship law considered "controversial issue"

The 18-month old coalition between the conservative-liberal VVD and the Christian democratic CDA was supported by the far-right PVV. The Netherlands is in danger of breaking the 3% rule imposed by the European Union and the three parties were negotiating new budget cuts. Those talks broke down unexpectedly on Saturday and the PVV revoked its support for the coalition.

New elections will most likely be held on September 12. Until that time, the VVD and CDA will formally remain in power but will no longer take on "controversial issues". It is now clear that both VVD and CDA, as well as most opposition parties, consider the proposed law "controversial" which means it will no longer progress. A May 15 meeting to discuss the proposal has been canceled.

CDA: "A PVV thing"

The main opposition parties have always opposed the restrictive law and in recent days the governing parties seem to have come around as well. CDA spokesperson Mirjam Sterk said in an interview with Dutch newspaperDe Telegraaf about the proposal: "That is a kind of PVV-thing that we've always found difficult".

Eelco Keij, the main organizer of the protests against the law: "Recently, the VVD made clear they were struggling with the proposal, and it was a courageous thing to air those disagreements."

New elections

The elections in September will determine the shape of the new coalition. It seems unlikely that the PVV will be part of a coalition again, which bodes well for those who are in favor of dual citizenship. For more information on how to cast your vote while abroad, contact your local Consulate or Embassy or read more information in Dutch at Kiesraad.nl.

It is a beautiful day today. The predictions not withstanding, the sun came out and it's around 80 degrees. We are spending our afternoon on the balcony. Nora prefers the shadow but likes to be with us.

In the morning, after her feeding, we put her in her chair and ten minutes later she started crying. Diaper was clean, food had been provided and she had just slept, so I picked her up to see what was going on. The answer was clearly that she wanted company, because she started smiling and cooing to us. Slowly but surely she's turning into a person with real social behaviors.

This morning talks within the Dutch government broke down, and new elections are likely. That is very good news for the dual citizenship for Nora and me. Let's hope that the proposed restrictive law goes away for good.

We are getting ready to receive friends for a drink.