The main character Kees Bakels is known for his odd swimming pool stride, which is wonderfully described and has become quite a concept in Dutch art, as it decades later returns in music, in movies, on theatre-stages and in literary stories. However, this happens in the first pages of the book. Theo Thijssen gives the reader a look in to thoughts and fantasies of the ten year old Kees Bakels, even in 2017, almost 100 years after publication, Thijssen's writing still succeeds to get into the heads of the reader, and both the very young and the older readers, who are now in their seventies, are moved by his thoughts and the events.
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We learn what Kees thinks he will say to the mother of the girl he secretly is in love with, when he has the honour to open the door of the school building for the girl and her mother. The effect is stunning. We get to read Kees' thoughts and have our own associations and emotions, and maybe our own fantasies and when in our sixties re-occurring memories, soon however, reality kicks in, and we read how the real world is abruptly different from his what Kees hoped for...
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The book is about a young boy looking for attention and acknowledgement of his potential and hidden qualities. And let's be honest, who didn't, or maybe who doesn't – even today when you're fifty or sixty, don't give up on yourself. Heartbreaking are the scenes when the father in the family gets really ill. Tuberculosis - in the end deadly. Family dynamics and how parents treat children or want to keep the dramatic shit away from kids - which of course never works. Today parents still do the same, far too often. While reading the book, more than once I had a tear rolling down my cheeks and quite a few times I laughed out loud.
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There are not too many books that still work after one hundred years, everyone will be able to find their own memories of our young lives in this book and young people of today will be able to feel their emotions in these family affairs and understand the dreams of their own potential. What a classic book. ( )

Schets leven van een jongen van een twaalftal jaar, vol dromen, en vooral hunkerend om herkend te worden als een bijzondere jongen. Interactie met volwassenen en andere jongeren. Vooral beschreven vanuit Kees zelf. Soms schakeling van dagdromen over zijn heldendaden. Maar altijd draait het anders uit. Armoedig milieu, maar toch liefdevolle ouders. Ook eerste opstandigheid.
Aandoenlijk, maar uiteindelijk toch niet genoeg drive ( )

Kees de Jongen is een prachtig boek. Het geeft een realistisch beeld van het kleine middenstandsmilieu omstreeks 1900. Thijssen schildert hier het gezin en de school af als beschermende machten waarin Kees zich veilig weet, dit in tegenstelling tot de, door veel andere auteurs beschreven, benauwende machten waaraan het kind zich wil ontworstelen. Het laat het romantische beeld zien van een kind wat door zijn fantasie een brug probeert te slaan tussen de werkelijkheid en ideaal. ( )

Herlezen na lezing van 'De gelukkige klas' , het boek van de actie Nederland leest. Mooi tijdsbeeld, gevoelig geschreven. ( )

(geweldig) top 250 gelezen ca 1990 ( )