Silver Skates Or Were They Gold?
A couple of years ago I tried to buy a book from eBay that I remembered from my childhood. I asked eBay to keep an eye out for it and let me know if it became available. The book was called The Golden Skates so the keyword I asked eBay for was “golden skates”. For the next two years I continually got told by eBay about babies bibs that had golden skates on them, mugs with figures of girls skating, and all sort of other items totally unrelated to the book I was looking for. In the end I told eBay to stop looking. It was a waste of time. Obviously the book was out of print and unavailable.
Then one day, I cannot remember how, but I found a reference to:
Hans Brinker and The Silver Skates.
Well, that was it. Silver not Gold. No wonder I could not find it on eBay or Amazon. I immediately purchased the book written by Mary Mapes Dodge and loved every minute of reading it. It was slightly different to how I remembered it but I enjoyed it all the same. I had also, in my mind, joined it up with the story of the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dyke to stop it breaking. Obviously that is another story but also set in Holland.
Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates is about a brother and sister who cannot afford to buy proper skates but instead skate on old hand made wooden skates. They enter a competition to win some silver skates. The story unfolds of the race and the obstacles that have to be overcome to win it.
This story inspired me, when I was little, to take up roller skating but I never got to try ice skating until I was about 30 years old. By then, of course, I was much too old to be a competition ice skater but I have always loved the beauty and symmetry of ice skating. Now that I am over 60 perhaps I need to listen to the audio book and relive the delight of the story.
Click Here To Get The Audio Book
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