Dhe visit of the young Philipp Hasenfuss to Otto Tüftler, who was about the same age, has a serious reason. A monster has recently been living under Philipp’s bed, and Otto is supposed to help him get rid of it.
If in a picture book like Jana Bauer’s “Monsterschreck” one is called a tinkerer and the other rabbit’s foot, then the roles are clearly divided. And it’s no great surprise that one spills his tea in fear, the other resolutely packs his tool bag and sets off with his client. Where one is paralyzed with fear, the other opposes the elusive horror with empiricism. Monsters, Otto lectures, can be divided into three groups, “scratch, tooth and shaggy monsters”, and for each of these groups there is an antidote. Otto knows them all: “Scratch monsters aren’t particularly smart and they’re most afraid of brass bands. As long as a scratch monster is still small, its mother threatens it every day with the biggest claw: If you are not good, the brass band will come and blow you away.
Otto does not reveal where he got his knowledge from, and if he resembles an exterminator in his art of expelling monsters, then also in this point: Anyone who fights vermin will demonstrate that he is familiar with their living conditions and will explain this to their client. He will identify himself as an expert, as a practitioner who has already performed such operations a hundred times. The less the client has reason to doubt this expertise, the calmer he will become. And hope that the bug infestation in his apartment will only be an episode. Here that means: Philipp will rely on Otto first identifying the monster and then taking the appropriate measures. It’s pretty much like this.
The monsters don’t just live under the bed
It’s just not about that alone. The clever Slovenian storyteller Bauer shows this clearly and immediately covers it up again with the dominant monster story. “Philip has a big problem. Eddie Ekel,” Otto reports at the beginning, only to immediately take his eyes off it again: “But Eddie Ekel was nothing compared to the gigantic problem he had encountered the night before.”
Jana Bauer, Małgosia Zając: “Monster Fright”. Translated from the Slovenian by Alexandra Natalie Zaleznik. Tulipan Verlag, Munich 2022. 40 p., hardcover, €15. From 6 years
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Image: Tulipan Verlag
What is so casually brought into close proximity here, one suspects, also belongs together in terms of content. Philipp and Otto live in the same high-rise building as Eddie Ekel, and on the way from one apartment to the other, i.e. on the way to the monster, they meet the other tormentor in the stairwell, who, with a mean grin, trips the passing Philipp, completely like it’s the norm between the two boys – one deals, the other takes. Apparently Otto will not only have to take care of what is hidden under Philipp’s bed.
Bauer – or better: Otto Tüftler – tells the story straightforwardly and clearly, but not carelessly, which shows again that linguistic efficiency often leads to beauty, especially in children’s books, also because the text gives the pictures the space they need to develop to continue the story. And Małgosia Zając’s illustrations use this opportunity for the most beautiful thing. Without pushing themselves to the fore, they fulfill the promise of Otto’s ingenuity with life. According to them, the boy is a natural history collector and analyst at the same time; sketches, mathematical calculation sheets and design drawings are lying around everywhere or adorning the walls. When he brings his monster typology closer to Philipp, he shows the details on a mural, and on the way to the place of action – Philipp’s bedroom – the bag with everything Otto needs to fight monsters proves to be a heavy burden.
But the pictures also illuminate the other side, the one in which the monstrous is less easy to recognize because it is part of Philipp’s everyday life. Eddie disgust is far from the only horror lurking among the neighbors. And the enraptured smile that Philipp’s mother, unsuspecting or not wanting to see, tries to hypnotize a cat at the kitchen table instead of taking care of her bullied child can certainly compete with the creepiness of the monster that Philipp and Otto still have encounter.
Incidentally, it turns out to be a thrashing, “a particularly rare, bold and evil creature,” says Mr. Kundig, the neighbor, whom the boys finally consult when they can no longer make any progress on their own. He, too, has had his own experiences with this monster, and he also reveals how to get rid of it. And he gives them a box that saved him from the noise he made when the monster catapulted him into space. It contains a mirror – the monster cannot stand the sight, faints and can then be taken away. But the pictures reveal something more. Back then, in space, it was precisely the mirror that enabled Mr. Kundig to return from the loneliness of space. If you want to fight your monsters, that’s how you can interpret it, you have to look yourself in the eye.
Jana Bauer, Małgosia Zając: “Monsterschreck”. Translated from the Slovenian by Alexandra Natalie Zaleznik. Tulipan Verlag, Munich 2022. 40 p., hardcover, €15. From 6 years