Anna Rutgers van der Loeff

Anna ("An") Rutgers van der Loeff-Basenau (March 15, 1910 – August 19, 1990) was a Dutch writer of children's novels.

Van der Loeff was born in Amsterdam on March 15, 1910, the eldest daughter of bacteriologist Jacob Basenau and writer-translator Nora Goemans.

Possibly her most popular novel was the 1963 Children on the Oregon Trail (De Kinderkaravaan), an account of a family of children traveling with a pioneer caravan to Oregon in the mid-19th century, loosely based on the real incident of the Sager orphans.

She did not shy away from controversial topics in her children's books and consciously strove to make her readers think.

Her work is also characterized by thorough preparation (she often traveled to do research), as well as realism, involvement with the characters, and versatility.