Writer, born in Oranjewoud, N Netherlands. She wrote popular girls' books which were more challenging than other books written for girls during that period. Most successful was the series Joop ter Heul (5 vols, 191925, 1946)
Cissy van Marxveldt (1889 - 1948), Dutch writer of children's books, whose Joop ter Heul novels for teenage girls had a notable influence on the writings of Anne Frank, who addressed her diary letters to an imaginary friend, based on one of Marxveldt's characters, Kitty Francken. She married Leo Beek (1893 - 1944), a reserve infantry officer in 1919 the year she published the first in her sequence of novels about the headstrong Joop ter Heul. The books, similar in theme to Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, take the form of diary notes and letters, following the fortunes of Joop and her friends from girlhood to marriage in five volumes:
The High School Years of Joop ter Heul (1919) Joop ter Heul's Problems (1921) Joop ter Heul gets Married (1923) Joop and her Boys (1925) Joop ter Heul's Daughter (1946)Marxveldt also wrote many other books for young people, "Een Zomerzotheid" ("A Crazy Summer") being particularly popular.
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