2023-12-23 15:45:51
When adults ask themselves why they have not yet found professional fulfillment, they are occasionally given the good advice to think about what they wanted to be as a child, at seven or eight years old. Not in order to then, if possible, qualify for exactly this job and still become an astronaut, researcher or magician, but in order to find the passions behind the ideas of that time that could still drive them as adults.
But what if you had difficulty naming such a fantasy as a child? If you have felt like Aron in Mark Janssen’s picture book “Dreamers”, which is by no means lacking in ingenuity. On the drive back from school, the boy pours out his heart to his father: President, firefighter, paleontologist – at the teacher’s encouragement that they could be anything they wanted, the classmates told about their dreams today. Only Aron just doesn’t know what he wants to be. Or does he not know what will become of him?
The father stops, gets out with his son, takes a few steps into the forest they are currently crossing, and explains to Aron that there are people who are particularly good at thinking, while others excel as doers. And then there are children who – the boy is literally hanging on his every word – see, smell, hear and feel everything differently, and suddenly…
Suddenly the book takes off: While the double-sided watercolors of forest and water, trees and rocks had long been mixed into the landscape like bright animal figures drawn by children’s hands, there is now no stopping Aron. The most colorful animals and mythical creatures take up the next picture, and the boy himself grows wings.
On the following page he already leads the crowd raging and screaming through the air. Next – “Fwuuuuuuush!” – he spits out a jet of fire with great pleasure, just visible in the colors of his jacket, sweater and pants, under the approving looks of the other dragons, while beneath them lies a human-shaped shadow grown out of round rocks, who now has additions like those drawn by a child’s hand: pale hands and eyes.
Stefan Trinks Published/Updated: Recommendations: 5 Fridtjof Küchenmann Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 2 Tilman Spreckelsen Published/Updated: Recommendations: 3
Mark Janssen created his picture book as a book of encouragement for children whose imagination occasionally runs wild. In order to illustrate what this means, it is essential for him to tell the story entirely from Aron’s perspective. This only works to a certain extent for the story before and after his high flight. But this is the only way to make the additional characters plausible, as they sneak into Aron’s childlike perception even during moments of attentive conversation with his father. Only then can Mark Janssen follow the boy through the fireworks of shapes and colors that develop as soon as he lets his imagination run wild. Only with this step can he go significantly beyond the narrative of so many picture books, which, like Leo Lionni’s classic “Frederick,” sing the praises of artistic creativity in contrast to, in balance with, the industriousness of all the other mice.
Mark Janssen: “Dreamer”. Ravensburger Buchverlag, Ravensburg 2023. 32 pages, hardcover, €19.99. From 5 years: Image: Ravensburger Buchverlag
How it goes on? Gently, almost as if he were catching him, the father brings Aron back to reality: They are these people who, when they grow up, make the world even more beautiful and happier with their art, he says. Then it’s time to go back: Mom will be home soon and dinner will be on the table by then. Finally Aron is called to the table, apparently not for the first time: Is his mind somewhere else entirely? Let him put down his pens and come.
A call that may be part of everyday life in many families and that some adults may also remember when they ask about professional fulfillment. The way the father calls his son not only lovingly fulfills the title of the book and names the promised third category alongside the thinkers and doers of this world. Aron’s answer also shows an autonomy that trusts that his parents will recognize his needs, even if it requires a lot of understanding and patience from them: “What a big, dear, little, cheeky dreamer you are,” cries out the father. “I’m coming!” replies the boy – and decides to finish painting his picture first.
Mark Janssen: “Dreamer”. Ravensburger Buchverlag, Ravensburg 2023. 32 pages, hardcover, €19.99. From 5 years
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