Leipziger Lesekompass This yearly prize is awarded by the Leipzig Book Fair and Stiftung Lesen [Reading Trust]. The winners are selected from all new books that were published in Germany within the last twelve months running up to each Leipzig book Fair. In 2014, the winners were selected from around 8,000 new publications! The Leipzig…
Anja
Rattenfänger Literaturpreis The Pied Pieper Literature Prize is awarded by the town of Hamelin and is worth 5,000 Euros. It was first awarded in 1984 when Hamelin celebrated ‘700 years of the Pied Pieper of Hamelin’. The prize is awarded once every two years and honors authors and illustrators of children’s fairy tales, modern tales,…
Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis The German Children’s Literature Award (Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis) is Germany’s only state-sponsored prize for works of fiction. It has been awarded annually since 1956 by a jury of literature specialists and critics in four categories: picture book, children’s book, young adult book and non-fiction. In addition, since 2003 an independent young adult jury gives its…
The little girl is lying in her bed, her eyes wide open. The night is black and you can get lost in the dark room like in a dark forest. But thank God, there is the white bear! He is sitting at the little girl’s bedside every night, slightly shimmering in the darkness. One day…
The little girl and her grandfather spend a lot of time together. They look at the trains at the station and watch the animals in the zoo, they buy bread on the market and weed grandfather’s garden. But whatever they decide to do, the old man always notes: maybe this is the last time we…
What do philosophers do when they philosophise? Books that deal with philosophy tell of great thinkers, their views and their lives. Philosophising itself remains in the dark. How it works, how it fosters creative and independent thinking, is now demonstrated by Jens Soentgen. He introduces the most popular and effective practices of philosophy, not abstract,…
Occasions to Think About Nothingness Are we nothing before we are born? Is it possible that nothingness is a hole? Where does a journey into nothingness lead? It is questions such as these that Antje Damm asks in this book and she thus takes children absolutely seriously. Her unique composition of succinct phrases with often…
Will the earth always be there? This is one of the questions Antje Damm poses in her book. Who wants to answer it? But to discuss it, to philosophise about it is fun and prompts us to think about the world in which we live. Where does fear come from? Does it hurt to grow…
His lonely way to school saddens the little boy’s heart every morning. There are so many things scaring him. The dark tunnel. The fierce old man. But one afternoon someone is waiting for him in front of the school. A nice guy with floppy ears and an amazing friendliness. It’s a big dog who, from…
Juri has finished his rocket and together with his sausage dog Laika sets out on his first flight into space. Everything seems perfect when they are suddenly drawn into an enormous storm in outer space. Having landed on an unknown star, they find that the rocket has been badly damaged. To make matters worse, they…
A wild thing has been waiting for Kira on her way to kindergarten as of late! It sits in a tree, has sharp teeth and is frightening. Kira would rather die than walk past the Wild once more. So she accompanies her dad to the office instead. It is boring at the office and all…
One fine day, the bees called for a grand assembly in the beehive. The purpose of the meeting? To discuss why it was that they were always all squashed together in cramped working conditions. After many complex computations, equations and calculations, they realized that there was one bee too many in their beehive! The bees…
A tale about a silent encounter: one day, Saída arrives at school – but she doesn’t speak! She comes from another country far away, and it seems as if she lost all her words during the journey. But Saída and her friend don’t give up, even though they lack a common language. They discover new ways…
A Voyage of Discovery through the Natural World Jens Soentgen’s voyage through nature stretches right through, from top to bottom, from macrocosm to microcosm. In doing so, the natural scientist and philosopher accomplishes something rare: he describes the phenomena he encounters with impressive subject-specific knowledge and romantic enthusiasm. Unearthing magnificent stories from the scientific findings…
Mrs. Beehive’s garden plot contains a treasure: three ripe “Queen-of-Sheba pears. But the valuable pieces of fruit are in danger! Sam Stripe and his colleagues, bat Shakira, bumblebee Fiffi, Mole, Fatspider, Ali and the Flipflops must guard the pears. This proves far from easy, as a circus has just pitched its tents nearby and to make…
Holidays at last! Sam Stripe is looking forward to some quiet and relaxing days in Mrs. Beehive’s garden. But just then uncle Benn, officiating church mouse at St. Pistor, needs help: a mysterious gold scraper is scraping the gold off the picture frames and figurines at the church. And so Sam Stripe, his friends the bat…
Strange things happen in Mrs. Beehive’s garden, the otherwise tranquil home of Sam Stripe: at first, the eggs of the breeding bird parents disappear and then the hatchlings are kidnapped! Sam Stripe is extremely worried. In the dive bar that is run by the shrew mouse behind the rain barrel, Sam Stripe and his friends Mole,…
Chaos at the Wizards’ School Clarissa, Marlon and Elmar have to learn the multiplication table spells. Sheer horror—for Marlon in particular until he finds an old stone tablet in the school library at Castle Adracabadra. This stone tablet releases a mysterious amplifying spell and causes utter confusion at the school. The class rooms are swarming…
Having finished high-school on the mainland, Cynthia returns to her native island in the Caribbean. A little paradise, actually: with white beaches and palm trees this is every tourist’s dream. Cynthia’s mother Mathilda runs a restaurant overlooking the most beautiful bay. But what Cynthia experiences and sees during the weeks of shrimp season has little…
Somewhere in an Indian village the earth begins to tremble in the middle of the night. The siblings Siri and Tissa run into the open. They watch the earth’s tremors with fascination and find out the reason for the earth quake from an old man on the following day: The death of the sublime Buddha…