Annie M.G. Schmidt was born in Kapelle, Zeeland, the daughter of a minister. A solitary child, she found an escape in writing poetry and fiction, even though she once received a grade of 2 (on a scale of 1 to 10) in Dutch class...she would later brag about the report card. Her mother encouraged her and send some of her poetry to Willem Kloos. After secondary school in Goes and working as an au pair in Germany, she began to study for a job as a librarian, an occupation she held until 1946. In 1947, she embarked upon her literary career while writing for the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, and soon started writing songs and sketches for such luminaries as Wim Sonneveld and Wim Kan.

Her literary career took off in the early 1950s, and included song- and playwriting for the theatre, scripts for radio and television shows, columns for newspapers, and children's books. By the time she died in 1995 (of heart failure caused by suicide), she was an icon of the Dutch literary world, and even her death...peaceful, in the company of her friends and family...continues to be referenced in the Dutch media and played an important role in discussions of euthanasia. Her life became the subject of plays in 2003 and 2009, her work continues to be in print, and her plays are still performed (such as 1989's Er zit een traan op de tompoes, a play discussing euthanasia, performed again in 1999).

Jip en Janneke

Schmidt began writing Jip en Janneke while working in Amsterdam at Het Parool. Jip and Janneke are two children who live next to each other, and engaged in short, self-contained adventures every week (apparently, some story lines were based on real adventures involving Schmidt's son Flip and the girl next door). The stories were illustrated by Fiep Westendorp. The first was published 13 September 1952, the last 7 September 1957; a total of eight book collections were published between 1953 and 1960. Jip and Janneke are among the best-known children's characters in the Netherlands...they were listed first on a list of "five typically Dutch phenomena"...and their likeness is marketed on a variety of products sold by the HEMA department stores.

Minoes

Minoes (1970) is the story of a cat who turns into a young lady, and by spreading gossip from the cat world helps a young journalist keep his job at the newspaper. In 2001, a movie version was directed by Vincent Bal based on a script by Burny Bos; it became one of the most popular Dutch children's movies abroad. Winning two Golden Calves, Minoes was the best-selling Dutch children's movie to date, and the DVD was certified platinum in 2002. More than 815,000 people saw it in the theatre, making it the highest-selling Dutch movie of the year, beating Costa! and the The Discovery of Heaven. The movie won first prize at the 2002 Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

In 1952 Schmidt began writing a radio show, the immensely popular De Familie Doorsnee, which ran until 1958. In 1957 she began writing Pension Hommeles, a musical comedy on VARA television.

Ja Zuster Nee Zuster

In the 1960s, Schmidt wrote one of the most popular Dutch television programs of all time, Ja Zuster Nee Zuster. She may have first drafted the screenplay in an illustrated story, only recently discovered, which she published in 1962: Tante Patent was found by dramatist Rieks Swarte in 2007 in a stack of old newspapers, and Swarte promptly turned that into a theatre show (with music by Fay Lovski).