German / Germany
Wir Kinder im Zug
(We children in the train)
Hensgen, Andrea
(text)
Brückner, Hannah
(illus.)
Wuppertal: Peter Hammer Verlag, [2025]. – [42] p.
ISBN 978-3-7795-0783-3
Homelessness | Journey | Picture book | Train | Displacement | Parable
Reading age: 4+
White Ravens issue: 2025
A group of children live on a train that keeps travelling nonstop along its route. Every two weeks, the train crosses a bridge. From there, the children can see their parents standing in the valley below the bridge. Each time the train approaches the bridge, the children get very excited even though they cannot get off the train. All that the parents and children can do is wave to each other through the open windows. After six minutes, everything is over, and the train continues on. One of the passengers, Jamil, is the narrator of this story. He describes all this quite calmly, because for him and the other children, everything that happens is simply their everyday life. But that is precisely what is so disturbing. Both in Andrea Hensgen’s text and in the illustrations by Hannah Brückner, the picture book tells a succinct and haunting parable about homelessness and uprootedness. Through the choice of framing and perspective, Brückner’s pictures feel dynamic and surprising but in no way overloaded. [IG]