The story behind the cover.
A few years after the Second World War, a young lad from Schagen, North Holland, got on his bicycle and cycled to the village of Oudorp. His destination was the Molenvaart, a waterway that ran through the village. He took out his sketchbook and pencil and began to draw two of the four remaining windmills that stood along the Molenvaart. 
Those windmills were called De Zes Wielen (The Six Wheels). Apparently, the name refers to the six wheels of three portage systems that were located at a lock to pull ships over a dike. The drainage mills were built to pump the excess water from one polder into the other.
Six octagonal windmills once stood along the Molenkade in Alkmaar-Oudorp. Two were built there in 1627, the other four in 1630. Sadly, one windmill was lost in 1688, when the easternmost mill of this group burned down and was never rebuilt. The remaining five, which were only given the designations A, B, C, D, and E in the 19th century, have traditionally been known as The Six Wheels. The windmills remained in service until 1941.
Mill A, the westernmost of the Zes Wielen, was dismantled with the plan to rebuild it at the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem. Unfortunately, the stored parts ended up as firewood when the houses in the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem were temporarily occupied during the Battle of Arnhem. During and after the Battle of Arnhem, the Open Air Museum served as an important shelter location for evacuees from the devastated city centre.
So by the time the lad from Schagen drew the windmills, only four were still standing tall. That lad was my father. When I came across this drawing that he had framed years ago, I decided it should be on the cover of my book Of Dutch Descent. And subsequently on the covers of the Dutch and German translations as well. My father was a man who had dreams, dreams he was never able to realize. By placing his artwork on the cover of my books, it is my way of honouring him and his memory.
The windmill my father drew all those years ago can be admired during Open Mill Day, held once a year in The Netherlands. Oudorp is just north of Alkmaar, North Holland.
  At the Six Wheels in Oudorp, holding a copy of the drawing.
