‘De Uitvinders van Droomstad’ as a book

a unique children’s book for ages 8 and up

The city is busy building and developing. Surrounding villages sometimes hesitate: keep up with progress, but how do you hold on to your own identity? Meanwhile, many new residents are arriving from other regions and countries. What does this mean for the city? And what does it mean for the children growing up here?

Maybe we should involve the children themselves. What if they made their own city? What would it look like?

Hugo Vrijdag, co-founder of The Discovery Factory and an artist, wrote a story about it. An adventure about the children Siem and Amani, who grow up in a city that feels strange to them.

Order the new book ‘De Uitvinders van Droomstad’ here

Vrijdag describes “The factory” as the inspiring setting for this story: an old factory with a workshop where children dream up and build their own Droomstad (Dream City). It starts small, but as soon as the adventurers get help from their friends, Droomstad grows fast. It becomes a beautiful, colourfully lit city that the children present during the GLOW light festival.

GLOW light festival

And this is where the story becomes reality. Children already presented their city in the project ‘Jouw Eindhoven van de Toekomst‘ (Your Eindhoven of the Future), and from 8 September schools in Eindhoven, Best, Oirschot, Veldhoven and Helmond start on the GLOW children’s project. With help from the organisations GLOW, Cultuurstation, the Van Abbemuseum, Korein and The Discovery Factory, and the cultural organisations of the participating municipalities, thousands of pupils will get to work dreaming up, drawing and making their Droomstad.

From 8 to 15 November it will be presented in and around the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. That is also where the final scene of this story will be filmed. Because alongside the richly illustrated book, a short feature film is being released.