German / Germany
Mut ist was Gutes. Gedichte zu Bildern von Wolf Erlbruch
(Courage is a good thing. Poems for pictures by Wolf Erlbruch)
Rautenberg, Arne
(text)
Erlbruch, Wolf
(illus.)
Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag, [2023]. – 43 p.
ISBN 978-3-7795-0712-3
Animals | Poetry
Reading age: 4+
White Ravens issue: 2023
Wolf Erlbruch, the great illustrator of books like »Duck, death and the tulip«, which have long been international classics, passed away in 2022. Now Peter Hammer Verlag has asked Arne Rautenberg, one of Germany’s best-known contemporary children’s poets, to write verses to accompany some of Erlbruch’s pictures. The result is a marvellous little book where pigs wantonly dive into water or elegantly swing on gymnastic rings, rabbits race around merrily, or a goose gives a turn at acrobatics, because »oh you know I sometimes get such a thrill / when I start to drill.« In the poem »gansseiltanz« (»goosewalkstheropeֿ«) Rautenberg responds directly to Erlbruch’s picture in which a goose is balancing on a tightrope high above the town. In other poems Rautenberg distances himself from the visible to express in free verse things that can be perceived as the essence of the pictures. The results are sometimes witty, sometimes rather pensive, sometimes laconic. »well, how can I say this«: Courage is simply a good thing! [IG]