Ot en Sien

Ot en Sien is a Dutch children's book series, written by Hindericus Scheepstra, a teacher in Drenthe, the Netherlands.

The stories are situated in Drenthe that was at the time the most impoverished province of the Netherlands where quite a few people were still living in dwellings constructed of peat and sods.

What Ligthart intended was to give a description of the daily family interactions of the main characters as a means to set an idealized example "where from an early age Father and Mother relate to each other and to the children, where a civilized and wellwilling tone is dominant, where the parents give a living example of friendliness, adaptability and sacrifice on a daily basis, not only towards each other and the children, but also towards the servants and the guests" Ligthart's philosophy was followed by many teachers in elementary schools in the Netherlands and the "Ot en Sien" books became a ubiquitous teaching tool for reading in elementary schools.

Generations of children in the ever more urbanizing and suburbanizing society grew up with an idyllic and rather unrealistic view of what family life should be like and apparently was like in the country side of Drenthe.

The text was to read "In memory of Jan Ligthart" but his widow Marie Lion Cachet objected to this because she knew that her husband had not actually written the stories, although he had given his friend Scheepstra continuous advice.