Jet Boeke (born October 28, 1948,

Wageningen Wageningen () is a municipality and a historic city in the central Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is famous for Wageningen University, which specialises in life sciences. The municipality had a population of in , of which many t ...

) is a Dutch children's author and illustrator. She is a contributor to the Dutch version of

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) a ...

, and is famous worldwide for her book series

Dikkie Dik Dikkie Dik is a Dutch series of children's picture books, starring the eponymous red tomcat Dikkie Dik. The books are drawn by author Jet Boeke, and feature short, concise texts by Arthur van Norden. The series started in 1978 as part of the D ...

Biography

When Jet Boeke was younger, she traveled through central and South America. During that time she would sometimes make portraits of people in exchange for food or shelter. During this time, she had met an American illustrator who worked for Sesame Street. She had seen the children for the first time on American television and was immediately very enthusiastic about it. Back in the Netherlands, Sesame Street had just been getting started. and was slowly becoming popular. She had then gotten in touch with the Sesame Street program. They had asked her to come up with a new idea for the show, and she had suggested that the show read picture books to the audience of the show. The idea of hers had been approved, and the protagonist of the story ended up being her cat, Dikkie Dik. Her cat plays as a huge influence and inspiration to Jet Boeke. Every year, she makes a new series of picture books for Sesame Street by making the stories and then sketch out the drawings. She wishes for the drawings to speak for themselves without any words. After Dikki Dik books would show up for years on television, a demand for them began in regular bookstores. Now Jet Boeke has a wide collection of stories about her orange cat Dikki Dik who will forever be her inspiration.

References

1948 births Living people Dutch illustrators Dutch women illustrators Dutch children's writers Dutch women children's writers Dutch children's book illustrators People from Wageningen {{illustrator-stub