Earn Der Struwwelpeter Translated By Heinrich Hoffmann Offered In Physical Book

to Max and Moritz, this is the best book to traumatize disobedient children, Those Germans know their discipline, . . I read this innumerable times in English translation as a child, and still know a lot of it by heart, . . but somehow I had never got around to looking at the German original, OMG, it is the most hysterically funny thing I have seen in at least a month, My German is very, very poor, and even so I found it impossible not to laugh on almost every page,

Here's a sample, courtesy of sitelinkthe Gutenberg version, If you also know the English Struwwelpeter, just try reading it aloud while looking at the pictures, and you'll see what I mean, The contrast between the happy, bouncy rhymes and the gruesome story of Paulinchen, who's too fond of playing with matches, . .



Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug

Paulinchen war allein zu Haus,
die Eltern waren beide aus,
Als sie nun durch das Zimmer sprang
mit leichtem Mut und Sing und Sang,
da sah sie plötzlich vor sich stehn
ein Feuerzeug, nett anzusehn.


Ei, sprach sie, ei, wie schön und fein!
Das muß ein trefflich Spielzeug sein,
Ich zünde mir ein Hölzchen an,
wies oft die Mutter hat getan,

Und Minz und Maunz, die Katzen,
erheben ihre Tatzen,
Sie drohen mit den Pfoten:
Der Vater hats verboten!
Miau! Mio! Miau! Mio!
laß stehn! sonst brennst du lichterloh!

Paulinchen hört die Katzen nicht!
Das Hölzchen brennt gar hell und licht,
das flackert lustig, knistert laut,
grad wie ihrs auf dem Bilde schaut.

Paulinchen aber freut sich sehr
und sprang im Zimmer hin und her,

Doch Minz und Maunz, die Katzen,
erheben ihre Tatzen,
Sie drohen mit den Pfoten:
Die Mutter hats verboten!
Miau! Mio! Miau! Mio!
wirfs weg! sonst brennst du lichterloh!



Doch weh! die Flamme faßt das Kleid,
die Schürze brennt, es leuchtet weit.

Es brennt die Hand, es brennt das Haar,
es brennt das ganze Kind sogar,

Und Minz und Maunz, die schreien
gar jämmerlich zu zweien:
Herbei! Herbei! Wer hilft geschwind
In Feuer steht das ganze Kind!
Miau! Mio! Miau! Mio!
zu Hilf! das Kind brennt lichterloh!

Verbrannt ist alles ganz und gar,
das arme Kind mit Haut und Haar
ein Häuflein Asche bleibt allein
und beide Schuh, so hübsch und fein.


Und Minz und Maunz, die kleinen,
die sitzen da und weinen:
Miau! Mio! Miau! Mio!
wo sind die armen Eltern! wo
Und ihre Tränen fließen
wies Bächlein auf den Wiesen.


Der Struwwelpeter is one of those picture books I grew up with, and read and heard repeatedly as a child, so I have an unreasonable amount of love for it, even though it's kind of awful All credit goes to my Germanspeaking mom, although I'm not sure if she shared this book with my siblings and me because she thought it was a funny book or was trying to scare us straight.


This German children's picture book with moral lessons in poems was first published in, when society particularly in Germany, I suspect was much in the mode of "spare the rod and spoil the child.
" No children being spoiled here! There are ten stories, pretty much all intended to show the horrible thingsmaiming, death, etc, that will happen if you are a disobedient or misbehaving child, For example:

In "Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug" "The Very Sad Story with the Match", a girl plays with matches and is burned to death.
A pile of ashes is all that remains of her, Her cats who tried to warn her to stay away from the matches are crying a river of tears,

Just like my cat would if anything ever happened to me, I'm very sure,

In "Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher" "The Story of the ThumbSucker"my favorite as a child!the mother warns her son Konrad not to suck his thumbs, or the tailor literally, the "cutter", who apparently has nothing better to do than snoop around looking for thumbsucking children, will come and snip them right off.
But as soon his mother leaves the house, pop! Konrad's thumb goes right back into his mouth, Suddenly this huge tailor leaps into the room and cuts off his thumbs with a giant scissors! Bam!!

The last picture shows Konrad standing there sadly, with little stumps where his thumbs used to be.


Good times!

And so it goes, It's even a tiny bit liberal for its time: There's a story about a guy hunting rabbits where a hare grabs the gun while he's asleep and turns it on him.


HAH! Take that!

And another story where three boys who are making fun of an African's dark skin are dipped in ink by a giant, stern St.
Nicholas so they can find out what it really means to be black,

This line from the Wikipedia article on this book cracks me up:

Hoffmann wrote Struwwelpeter in reaction to the lack of good children's books, Intending to buy a picture book as a Christmas present for his threeyearold son, Hoffmann instead wrote and illustrated his own book,

Okay, I thought this was hilarious as a child, but I'm not sure sharing it with ayear old is the way to go, But there it says, right on the title page: "Funny stories and droll pictures, for childrenyears old, " "Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder für Kinder vonbisJahren, " Just for the record, I do NOT recommend this for sensitive little ones, But maybe if you've got a rowdyoryear old,

Anyway, this poetry book is a classic, in its own weird and gruesome way, And I read it many, many times as a child, and I turned out fine! SHUT UP!

sitelinkHere's a link to the original German version, free on Project Gutenberg, and sitelinkhere's another link to an English translation that's pretty good, if rather loose.
The tales told here remind me of Mother Goose type of little rhymes, used to teach children to behave or who knows what awful fate they may meet, Some of these have mild punishments for misbehaving, while others are down right horrific, It is likely that these short verses worked well at keeping children out of too much trouble when they were written in, while children may not have truly believed the outcomes they probably didn't want to step out of line either.
Children today, overall, are so desensitized and at early ages that most probably wouldn't have nightmares after hearing these, especially if read in that sing songy way one reads rhymes.
That being said, if you have a sensitive child, you may want to skip a few of these, I know at a young age my daughter would have not enjoyed a few of these, and honestly even now as a teen she would probably say, really, why, she prefers happy things, well most of us do.


I would give sitelinkthis edition an additional star because it would be a wonderful resource for someone that is learning, our wanting to brush up on, their German or Latin.
Each rhyme is presented in all the languages, the third being English, Originally written in German they have become a favorite to be translated into Latin because the easily transform into the medieval poetry pattern, Enough and Latin see only the top of the iceberg as far as translations go, these have been translated into overdifferent languages/dialects, This edition also includes a section at the end where the works have been modernized a bit and presented in English only, These modernizations kept with the original, but mostly looked at changing a few words here and there to use terminology that would make more sense to today's children, Of course, as with any good children's book, colorful pictures can be found accompanying the tales as well,

I also placed a hold on sitelinkStruwwelpeter: Humor or Horror:Years Later to see what "they" have to say about Heinrich Hoffman's work, It is ready for me to pick up, so should be able to post review on it in a few days as well, Kult, aber auch ein bisschen krass :D Book review for learners of German:

We all know the original Grimms fairy tales were more gruesome than the Disney stories we grew up watching.
Der Struwwelpeter is another example of a childrens book that todays parents find shocking even though the book has been read to children for generations, Nearly every German knows this story, so it is culturally significant, But, no, I would not read this to my daughter, You can view it for free on Project Gutenberg gutenberg, org. Caso strano e affascinante quello dello Struwwelpeter ideato in occasione del Nataledal medico di Francoforte Heinrich Hoffmann, esempio di pedagogia "metternichiana" tanto letterale quanto cruenta e crudele e per questo oggi rifiutata diventato simbolo di un'epoca e oggetto di parodie, "sequel" e interpretazioni le più diverse.
Famoso quanto Pinocchio nelle culture nordiche, da noi è un personaggio misconosciuto e quindi assolutamente da recuperare, Altrove forse è più noto, come sembra dimostrare l'evidente ispirazione per Edward Scissorhands di Tim Burton, Il volume pubblicato da Longanesi nelriunisce preceduti da un'utile introduzione il libro originale e un suo seguito a firma di diverso autore in cui Pierino si ravvede, This book is the antidote to Disney, It is the opposite of all those nasty, sugarsweet versions of Cinderella, the Little Mermaid and worst of all WinniethePooh, Worst because Eeyore was, in the original, A, A. Milne version, a sarcastic, depressive real loner of a donkey, not a sweetnatured stuffed toy,

Struwwelpeter is all about children getting punished in the nastiest possible ways for their awful misdeeds, I loved this book when I was a kid, I also loved Disney,

but I grew out of that, except for Bambi, Have to love Bambi.

My two personal favourites of the stories are firstly, Conrad, aka Little SuckaThumb who was told that if he didn't stop plugging his mouth with his thumb he would get it cut off.
And when he didn't and his mother was out, the nasty Scissorman came and snip snap, both thumbs gone!

Secondly is Augustus, my no, one favourite, who starved himself to death rather than drink the nasty soup he was served for lunch, I had some sympathy there as more than once I had to sit at the lunch table, even missing school in the afternoon, because I wouldn't drink up the nasty chicken soup.
I know that being Jewish chicken soup is supposed to be in my dna, but it just isn't and I hate the stuff, loathe it Or another time, wouldn't eat the liver casserole, cold with congealed floating grease, or lamb chops glistening with fat.
. .

These sort of stories were much more satisfying to me as a child being delightfully shivery,

But there was something else, Children have a very highly developed sense of justice, They are forever saying, "it's not fair" about some perceived injustice, Stories like these where naughty children get their comeuppance appeal to kids, they see the fitness of a punishment, rather than the forgiveness and sugary reward and happilyeverafter od Disney that never actually comes their way when they've been very naughty little boys and girls.


You can read all the stories and see the original handcoloured woodblock prints on the sitelinkGutenberg site,

Wow! This will scare the kids into behaving for sure complete with graphic pictures of injuries and death, Written in the's. I read the Englishtranslation,

I shall share the highlights of my topfavorite disturbing fairy tales of the Struwwelpeter collectionshared in no particular order:

Story of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup
Augustus was a chubby lad Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had.
. .
Augustus ate his soup everyday just like a good little fat boy should but then, . .
But one day, one cold winter's day, He screamed out 'Take the soup away! O take the nasty soup away! I won't have any soup today.
'
The story then recounts five days of no soup and the dire consequences to his healthy body,

The final verse to the story:
Look at him, now the fourth day's come! He scarcely weighs a sugarplum He's like a little bit of thread, And on the fifth day, he was dead!

Dreadful Story about Harriet and the Matches
Harriet liked to play with matches.
Mamma and Nurse had to leave Harriet alone with the pussy cats, Harriet was warned that if she touches the matches, she would be scolded, 'O, what a pity! For, when they burn, it is so pretty, . . Alas Harriet could not resist and the pussy cats could do nothing to stop her even with their hissing and meowing,

And see! Oh, what a dreadful thing! The fire has caught her apronstring Her apron burns, her arms, her hair She burns all over everywhere.
So she was burnt, with all her clothes, And arms, and hands, and eyes, and nose Till she had nothing more to lose except her little scarlet shoes And nothing else but these was found among her ashes on the ground.


Story of Little SuckAThumb
Conrad sucks his thumb and mommy has to go out on an errand, Mommy warns Conrad of a tall tailor with great scissors, . . He takes his great sharp scissors out, And cuts their thumbs clean off and then, you know, they never grow again.
As soon as mommy's back is turned Conrad puts his thumb in his mouth, the door flies open with the tall tailor, his great scissors in hand, The tall tailor promptly cuts both of Conrad's thumbs off and the illustration shows the blood dropping to the floor really great :

Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go And Conrad cries out 'Oh! Oh! Oh!' Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast, That both his thumbs are off at last.




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