10.500 copies sold in the Netherlands

Shortlisted for the Thea Beckmann Prize 2019 & De Kleine Cervantes 2020

Nominated for the German Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis and Gustav Heinemann Friedenspreis 2021

Based on the life of Haarlem-born resistance fighter Freddie Oversteegen

Freddie is only fourteen when World War II breaks out. During the war, her mother takes in Jews who have fled Hitler’s Germany. In 1941, Freddie and her older sister are asked to participate in the armed resistance. The girls lure high-ranking Nazis into the forest, where they are killed by fellow resistance fighters. The sisters are then given their own pistols, and Freddie finds herself oscillating between fear and courage, doubt and pride. Amid all this, Freddie has to deal with the frustrations of being a teenager in love. She adores her boyfriend Peter but he struggles with her role as a resistance fighter, even though he has no idea what the nature of her resistance work is. But Freddie refuses to stand by helplessly and takes greater and greater risks. The danger of betrayal mounts. Who can she still trust? Then she makes a shocking discovery…

This poignant story about betrayal and trust, loyalty and love, is based on the life of the Netherlands’ youngest female resistance fighter, Haarlem-born Freddie Oversteegen, who, together with her sister Truus, worked for the resistance group whose later members included Hannie Schaft. Freddie passed away on 5 September 2018, a day before her 93rd birthday.

‘The Girl with the Braids tells her gripping story: it is a cinematic book based on true events […] I have never read such a raw account of the Dutch resistance in a YA-novel.’ – Bas Maliepaard, Trouw