The stories are set in Drenthe, which is in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands. Drenthe was a very poor part of the country, but Ot and Sien live in a nice house and are quite well-off. They are often seen playing in the garden with their toys which include a wooden horse on wheels and a doll in a dolly’s pushchair. The cat is often in the picture. They are also seen at school.
The authors wrote the stories to show a happy family life. Everyone is very friendly in the book, and strangers help them when they get lost in the street. The family have a servant who helps in the house.
The stories were widely read by children in schools in the Netherlands until after the Second World War. By then they had become very old-fashioned. The daily life of Ot and Sien seemed to belong to a time long ago in history. Hardly any Dutch children now live in a family with a servant. No Dutch child nowadays goes for a walk dressed in sailor’s costume with a father who wears a cloak and hat. The books are no longer read in schools, but they continue to be popular with Dutch people at home. In 2004, one hundred years after the first book was written, a special exhibition about Ot and Sien was held.
There is a statue to Ot and Sien in The Hague, made in 1930.
In the Dutch language there are expressions which refer to Ot and Sien.
Pulaski, Wisconsin
Pulaski is a village in the Brown, Oconto, and Shawano counties of the state of Wisconsin in the United States. 3,060 people were living in Pulaski as of the 2000 census. The parts of Pulaski that are in the Oconto and Brown Counties are part of the Green Bay metropolitan area. Pulaski has an area of 2.5 square miles, says the United States Census Bureau.
Norah Jones
Norah Jones (born March 30, 1979) is an American singer and pianist. Her first album, "Come Away with Me" was released in 2002. It was a mix of contemporary jazz, folk, and country music. The album won five Grammy Awards in 2003. She released her second album, "Feels Like Home" in 2004, which sold over a million copies in its first week of its release. "Sunrise" won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2005 Grammy Awards. Her third album, "Not Too Late" was released in 2007. That year Jones also acted in a movie for the first time. The movie, "Blueberry Nights", had a song by Jones on its soundtrack. In 2009, "The Fall" was released. According to Billboard, Jones is the 60th highest-selling artist of the 2000s. In 2011 Jones sung on Seth MacFarlane's first album. Jones' fifth album "Little Broken Hearts" was released in 2012. It was produced by Danger Mouse. On November 25, 2013, an album Jones made with Billie Joe Armstrong called "Foreverly" was released.
Jones was born Geetali Norah Jones Shankar in 1979 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, to Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and American concert producer Sue Jones. When Jones was sixteen she changed her name to Norah Jones.
Exhibition
An exhibition is an organized event in which a collection of special objects can be viewed by the public. The objects are often brought together from many places for the period of the exhibition. The objects on show are called exhibits.
Museums often organize special exhibitions, such as paintings by a famous painter. These paintings will mostly be “on loan”, i.e. specially borrowed from other museums. Exhibitions can be about anything. They may be to do with art, or they can also be science exhibitions.
Some exhibitions show things which can be bought. Firms exhibit the things they have made, hoping to encourage business. These exhibitions are called trade fairs. They are sometimes called expositions or expos. They may be open to the public, but others are just for invited business people.
Come Away with Me
Come Away with Me is the first album by American jazz singer Norah Jones. It was released on February 26, 2002 on Blue Note Records. The main genre is considered contemporary jazz. The album is actually contemporary jazz with some country, folk music, and pop. Some jazz musicians do not think that the album is actually jazz, because of the changes Norah Jones made to some of the jazz songs she covered.
"Come Away with Me" reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and won eight Grammy Awards. It sold over 10 million copies in the first three years of its release. It is Norah Jones' best-selling album, and the best-selling jazz album of all time.
Grammy Awards
Ruben Bierer
Ruben Bierer (Dr. "Rubin Bierer", often: "Reuben Bierer"; * about 1845 in Lviv; † 1931 ibid.) was a doctor in Sofia and one of the first pioneers of the Jewish nationalism and one of the first active zionists in Galicia and Bulgaria, adherent of Hovevei Zion in Galicia, Austria and Bulgaria.
In 1867 he was in Lviv a co-founder of the first Jewish-political association of Austria-Hungary, "Shomer Israel". As an opponent against Polish assimilation of the Jews he established for the 1873 elections of the Reichsrat a Jewish-ruthenian electoral alliance. In 1879 he separated from the "Shomer Israel" and went to Vienna for the purpose of medical studies where he – together with Peretz Smolenskin – found the Jewish-political association "Ahavath Zion" (for the reason of colonisation of the holy land).
In 1882 he was a cofounder of the Viennese "Kadima" Studentenverbindung. In 1883 he returned to Lviv where he founded the first Jewish-national association of the Austrian east, "Miqra Kodesh".
In 1885 he went to Serbia, in 1900 he returned to Lviv where he successless tried to reactivate the "Shomer Israel".
Nathan Birnbaum coined the word zionism about the year 1890. But he is not the creator of this word, it was already in use, e.g. you can find in a letter of Ruben Bierer from the 9th December 1888 the expression "zionist brother's greeting". The word "zionist" is found already in the year 1877 in an in Roumanian written pamphlet (annual report of the order "Zion" in Bucharest).
Hezekiah
Hezekiah (meaning God will strengthen) or Ḥizqiyyāhu (Hebrew), also translated as Ḥizkiyyahu (and sometimes as Ezekias (Greek), Khizkiyahu, Yəḥizqiyyāhu, Y'khizkiyahu), was a king of Judah that appears in the book of 2 Chronicles, chapters 18 to 32, and the book of 2 Kings chapters 18 to 20. He was one of the few kings who is compared favorably with David, and is unique for his trust in the Lord: "There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the LORD and did not cease (stop) to follow him" (NIV).
Hezekiah was the son of Judah's King Ahaz, and is best known for turning his people away from the sins of his father Ahaz, restoring worship in the temple, and having his life made 15 years longer. The Book of 2 Chronicles tells more about Hezekiah than any other king after Solomon, and suggests that he is a "second Solomon" in his celebration of the Passover, his wealth, his honor, and his land.
Toward the end of his reign, he became very sick and close to death. He prayed to the Lord, who healed him miraculously. The king of Babylon heard about it and sent men with a letter and gift to Hezekiah. Because Hezekiah was proud of his riches, he showed all of his treasures to the visitors. The prophet Isaiah predicted that it all would later be taken by the Babylonians. His prediction came true.
Tine Thing Helseth
Tine Thing Helseth (Norwegian:ˈtiːnɛ tɪŋ hɛlsɛt; born 1987 in Oslo) is a Norwegian trumpet soloist who specialises in playing classical music.
Helseth began playing trumpet when she was seven years old and stuides at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo. She has studied under both Heidi Johanessen (a member of the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra) and, since 2002, Arnulf Naur Nilsen (member of the Oslo Philharmonic).