Literature: children's literature - literature - culture - planet knowledge

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Nature and Civilization is increasingly perceived as opposites. This conflict is also evident in the children’s book classics of the time.

“The little witch” only conjures up good things

With the island of Lummerland in his book “Jim Knopf and Lukas the engine driver” Michael Ende designs a model state in which life is determined by the child’s worldview.

Other authors such as Otfried Preußler or James Krüss also interlink reality and fantastic in their literature. With “The Little Aquarius” (1956) or “The Little Witch” (1957), Preussler builds on the folk legend tradition.

While these books deliberately describe a space beyond the problematic reality, other authors point back to reality with their fantastic adventures.

They harbor criticism of post-war capitalist Germany such as James Krüss’ “Timm Thaler or Das sellte Lachen”. Or they relieve the child’s soul with invented friends who, like Astrid Lindgren’s “Karlsson from the roof”, react to real problems, here the loneliness of the city child.

for children" (1973) or Friedrich Karl Waechters "Antistruwwelpeter" become standard works in children’s shops and rooms.

Authors like Ursula Wölfel set the "heal bullerbü world" a literature counter to the Enlightenment.

However, the phase of radical realism is short. The RAF terror of the "German autumn" also has a sobering effect on many authors: as in Janoschs "Oh how nice is Panama" (1978) When tiger and bear end up happily at home on the plush sofa, the heroes of many other children’s books soon turn to a more autonomous, not so radically realistic world.