Hans Brinker is of uneven literary quality. Dodge paints vivid pictures of what it was like to be poor or well-to-do in nineteenth-century Holland. The synopses of Dutch history and culture remain interesting because Dodge involves the characters in them and because she does not include too much information. But the desire to be informative leads Dodge to switch point of view frequently, disrupting the novel's structure. In the middle section, Hans and the Brinker family disappear for a long spell as Peter van Holp and his comrades take over the action. While Dodge often writes informal or colloquial dialogue that incorporates information and gives a flavor of the Dutch language and speech patterns, she sometimes does so awkwardly. For example, to introduce the famous "Hero of Haarlem" tale about the boy who stuck his finger in the dike, two English students who read it in...