Hope and Fantasy: Children’s book author: Don’t tell children too much about the war

2024-08-23 04:30:36

Hope and fantasy
Children’s book writer: Don’t tell children too much about the war

Children’s book author Ursel Scheffler believes that children should have hope and imagination despite the wars in the world. Photo

© Markus Scholz/dpa

For Ursel Scheffler of the children’s book, the war in Ukraine evoked bad memories of his childhood. Today he called for the youth not to give up hope and imagination.

Children’s book author Ursel Scheffler (86, “Commissioner Kugelblitz”) experienced flashbacks at the beginning of the Ukraine war in February 2022. “Suddenly I was a child sitting in an air base. I heard airplanes and I have dust and a burning smell in my nose again,” Scheffler told the German Press Agency from his home in Hamburg. In 1944, when he was six years old, he saw his hometown of Nuremberg destroyed by Allied bombs.

A way for them Let your imagination run wild

Today, the mother of three and grandmother of three, who have sold millions of books and audiobooks, advocates do not burden young people with stories about war events. “In the spring I met a Ukrainian writer at the Leipzig Book Fair. He told me everything he wrote – about the war and the many injured people,” Scheffler told dpa. “So I said to him, Please give the children their childhood, it is over quickly. And don’t tell them about suffering.

For several years now, Scheffler has been primarily committed to promoting reading. He is a reading representative for the “Reading Foundation” (Mainz) and started the “Book Towers” program in 2011. For his achievements, the author received the prestigious Biermann-Ratjen Medal from the Hanseatic City of Hamburg in 2018.

Book bridges, book towers and reading towers

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