German / Germany
Aali muss los
(Eeli needs to set off)
Zipfel, Dita
(text)
Heinrich, Finn-Ole
(text)
Brönner, Nele
(illus.)
Hamburg: Huckepack, 2025. – [64] p.
ISBN 978-3-948722-48-7
Sea | Trip | Eel
Reading age: 8+
White Ravens issue: 2026
In »Aali muss los«, Dita Zipfel, Finn-Ole Heinrich, and Nele Brönner tell the story of an eel’s coming of age – and so much more. They have chosen an unusual hero, an eel, one of those creatures who seem to have come straight from prehistoric times and whose life is unique and special. Eels undertake long journeys in the sea and in rivers and undergo a metamorphosis four times during their lives. Aali is at one such turning point. He has been swimming in the Kiel Canal for twenty years, but suddenly »[he] feels a tugging in his chest, a tingling sensation running through his whole body«. Aali is transforming from a yellow eel into a silver eel and sets off on the long, perilous journey back to his origins: the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean. The book combines natural history and adventure fiction, magnificent illustrations – in many shades of blue and green, accented with some yellow – and a creative, conversational narrative style, in which not only the anthropomorphised Aali, but also the narrators themselves have their say. [IG]