Children’s literature – when class separation is woke

It is a cruel short story. And that it seems to be true, it makes things worse. It is about an eight -year -old who describes his everyday life. From the outside, this is a depressing life. The father: constantly on tour as a truck driver. The mother: One suspects that she is an alcoholic and prostitute herself at home. If she had a “visit”, she gives her children money for lunch. Laces for the shoes, warm clothes in winter? None. “The other children are not allowed to play me. I don’t know why. You don’t know either. “But readers know:” Jürgen Körner, 8 years, 2nd school year “(according to Susanne Kilians Story) the social advancement will be denied.

This depressing story can be found in “Geh and Game with the giant”, the first “yearbook of children’s literature”, which was published by the Beltz & Gelberg publishing house, which was then founded at the time. This anthology won the »German Youth Book Prize ’72«, standing in front.

These were different times. With the reform pedagogy of the late 60s and early 70s, a new children’s literature was also created. There had already been cruelty in children’s books. You don’t want to imagine many fairy tales from the brothers Grimm in the original – Quentin Tarantino would have fun. But this new German cruelty was a different nature. She fed out of reality. Suddenly grew up -up middle -class children received an insight into a world that had nothing to do with row house idyll. The orange books by Beltz & Gelberg, but also children’s series such as the “Rappelkiste” or “thinking” showed what happened behind the doors of social housing, under what conditions “guest workers” (as was called migrants) and what it meant, in to be poor in a rich country.

That was often damn hard food. But it sharpened social awareness. It was made aware of the sometimes brutal social differences that were also available in the Bundeschwunder Federal Republic in times of full employment. This was how children’s literature had an enlightening effect.

From and over! The majority of today’s children’s and youth books no longer go where the so-called dirty children play. This is surprising at first, as the Woke movement seems to have a strong basis, especially in children’s book publishers. For example in the Carlsen-Verlag. The book and book series »Conni«, which is considered to be pedagogically valuable, has been published there since 1992. She describes the life of a girl from kindergarten to puberty.

The series is primarily up to date. The publisher proudly emphasizes that Conni has “a very diverse friendship environment”. There are children of different origins in their daycare center. Laura’s father comes from Ghana, the parents of Son are from Vietnam. Semire has Turkish roots like Emir. Internationally, the daycare summer festival is also approaching. Oriental dishes such as couscous are served in the »1001 night tent«-multiculturalism has always worked best.

But on closer inspection, the beautiful colorful picture gets dirty cracks. The mother of a Muslim child naturally wears a headscarf. A cliché that is consistently examined in German children’s books. On the one hand, this is racist (because it suggests that all Muslim women wear headscarves per se) and on the other hand hostile and reactionary. German children’s book authors seem to have escaped that their gender comrades in the Middle East to combat the headscarf as a symbol of oppression under endangering their life (as in Iran).

The various world is only facade painting. There is a daycare center called Alena who sits in a wheelchair. This is enough for the idea of ​​inclusion. An independent storyline does not develop from this. Emir and Co. are only staffage. They serve as an ethnic decoration that should signal tolerance and openness. The fact that diversity is only a backdrop becomes clear as soon as Conni leaves the premises of kindergarten and school. Then a world reveals itself that could hardly be bio -German. This is where money is a foreign word. When buying, the pockets are packed afterwards. Because Connis Mother is a pediatrician, the father an engineer. At most, conflicts arise from the fact that mom is too often deepened into her cell phone instead of listening to her daughter.

The family belongs to the upper middle class. A story is called “Conni drives ski”. This makes it one of the ten percent of Germans who can still afford vacation on the slopes. The regular vacation in the snow is a matter of course (“she absolutely wants to ski again next winter”). The authors require that the readers also have the necessary notes for the increasingly expensive winter sports. Yes, the money is even enough for your own pony-reading in “The Great Conni Horse Book”.

If you don’t meet on the paddock or the slopes, is Semire. And of course Conni doesn’t get the first kiss from Emir, but from Phillip. His father plans to move to Switzerland with him. He probably already has a chalet there. Wealthy people stay among themselves.

Not too many words are lost in German children’s books about the less wealthy. Do the publishers assume that there is not much read in the families of low -wage employees and citizens’ girders? You prefer to deal with a world – like in “Bobo Siebenläfer”, another racer in the children’s book sector – in which grandma and grandpa shop at the organic farm and the parents drive ecologically correctly. Probably to compensate for the numerous vacation flight trips.

Therefore, is the claim on the website of the Carlsen publishing house »The special thing about Conni? She is a child like any other! ”A brazen lie. The milieu -neglected milieu, which is exposed in today’s children’s books, is interested in ponies, but not in the life of others. Bad luck for Jürgen Körner and Semire!