The House of Sixty Fathers is the only one of DeJong's books not set in Holland or the American Midwest, but it shares themes with The Singing Hill, in which a little boy must cope with loneliness and fear when his brother and sister go to school, leaving him without companionship. A difficult journey—for a dog in Hurry Home Candy and for a Dutch boy in both Far Out the Long Canal and Journey from Peppermint Street—is a common theme in DeJong's work. Although Moonta, in Far Out the Long Canal, lives in a peaceful village, he faces perils when he must skate a long way on breaking ice. The dog Candy of Hurry Home Candy finds different sorts of difficulties as it tries to find a home, but like Tien Pao, it does not give up.