Book Fair: Children’s books: Capitalism for the little ones

Publishers are a gathering place for German scholars. For people who spend years of their lives dissecting words and sentences. This makes them surgeons of language. Like their colleagues in the medical field, they sometimes lose sight of the big picture because of all the details. Malpractice also happens. Then the happy cartoon pig “Fridolin Freudenfett” becomes “Fridolin Freundlich,” and the small-minded person who screws up Erika Fuchs’s literary Donald Duck translations doesn’t even notice that he is practicing body shaming. Overweight people aren’t allowed to be happy about their weight? Apparently fat is a taboo in a society in which even wristwatches (“smart watches”) are used for the purpose of self-optimization. Already walked 10,000 steps today?

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Attitudes of mind are revealed in such details. The matter becomes really revealing when you look at the worldview that should be conveyed to very young people. “My first big book from my family” is the name of a standard work from the Ravensburger series “My first ministeps library”, which is aimed at small children aged 24 months and over and was developed together with the magazine “Parents”. It was released in 2017 and has since sold better than most books found in the literary new releases corner.

Of course, parents want their little ones to “read” educationally valuable things. And Ravensburger is the classic publisher for pacifier baking. This distinguishes him from Beltz & Gelberg, who shook up the West German children’s book market in the 1970s with their orange volumes by showing the ugly and making it clear that the children’s world is not always a perfect one. For many middle-class parents, this was too political, too left-wing, too dark.

Ravensburger never went that far. You are mainstream. You don’t rush ahead of the zeitgeist, but adapt to it when it seems necessary. In “My Visit to the Pediatrician,” Uncle Doctor has darker skin and has the Turkish name Aslan. The dentist, in turn, is female. What is long overdue: two thirds of new medical students are women.

And what about the family, the “nucleus of the state”? With a divorce rate of 40 percent, the image of mom and dad staying together for life can no longer be maintained. Ravensburger knows that too. In “My first big book about my family” there is a divorced father who only sees his child at fixed appointments. (“Anna’s dad doesn’t live with mom and Anna. But today he’s picking up Anna because today is daddy’s day.”) You can also find a patchwork family here. (“Noah likes Sofie. He wants to be with her most of all. Noah’s mom and Sofie’s dad want that too. That’s why they’re all moving into a new house soon.”)

In addition, it is no longer taboo if mom has white skin and dad has black skin. Luckily, this doesn’t even need to be mentioned anymore. The father stands out because of “green glasses and a beard around his mouth” – not because of his dark complexion. Strangely enough, skin color does become an issue when it comes to adopting a child. (“Loran is new to Hannah’s family. … He comes from a different country and looks completely different. His skin is much darker than Hannah’s.”)

Ravensburger also shied away from depicting a family in which the parents are the same gender. Perhaps the publisher discussed whether its readers could be expected to be so tolerant when it comes to homosexuality and came to the conclusion that it would be better to wait a few more years.

What has definitely not been discussed is capitalism – and how it shapes the modern world of work and thus family life. Because Germanists are not political scientists. Their interest is in the superstructure, not the economic base. That’s why in “My first big book about my family” you don’t learn anything about the parents’ employment relationships, but you unintentionally learn a lot about what work does to them.

The first story “Cuddle Time” sets the tone. A cozy Sunday morning in the parents’ bed is described. There’s cuddles and tickles until the ice shower rains down in the last sentence: “Oh, how nice it is when there’s family time on Sundays!” Which, conversely, means: On six out of seven days of the week, time is in short supply and the family falls by the wayside.

The problem of time management also comes up in other Ravensburger volumes. “My first big book about cuddling, comforting, falling asleep” prepares the one-and-a-half-year-olds for the reality of the professional world: “On Sundays, dad and mom have a lot of time for Max and Greta.” Unfortunately, not the rest of the week.

The quality time with the offspring is limited. One story is titled “Mom Takes Time.” The intro makes it clear that this is something special: “This afternoon, Mom and Greta are alone. They were both really looking forward to it.” One can only imagine how long the anticipation lasted. One, two or even three weeks?

It’s good if you have relatives who can step in every now and then. »Every Tuesday, mom and dad have to work long hours. Then Uncle Moritz picks up Lise from the daycare center. Since the opening times are until at least 5 p.m., it can be assumed that the parents will see their offspring at some point in the evening.

It is a cross with the owners of the means of production, who dispose of the time of their human productive forces as they see fit. In “Bye, Mom!”, a daycare teacher greets the arriving children with the words: “You’re staying with us for a long time today” – the capitalist, sorry!, the employer wants it that way.

However, the prevailing economic order requires employees to adapt not only to time but also to space. The urgently needed family support with child care is no longer necessary if grandma lives in Halle (Saale) and mom and dad live in Hamburg. About the solution that Ravensburger has in store for such unfortunate situations – “Grandma Frida is Paul’s surrogate grandma. His real grandmother lives far away. “But Grandma Frida lives next door” – many parents can only dream.

At this point, at the latest, you wish your children would fall asleep early while reading aloud – the little ones will understand soon enough why mom and dad never have time.

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