Children's Books
Stefanie HöflerPhilip Waechter
Ameisen in Adas Bauch. Ein Kinderbuch über leise und laute Gefühle
[Ants in Ada’s Tummy. A children’s book about quiet and loud feelings]
This book was showcased during the special focus on Italian (2022 - 2024).
A butterfly emerges
How might we best view the life of Ada, the little heroine of Ameisen in Adas Bauch (‘Ants in Ada’s tummy’), who will soon be starting school? She has a younger brother, Max, with whom she often squabbles before having the most marvellous adventures with him only moments later. She has a loving, caring mother she can always depend on. In Stefanie Höfler’s Kinderbuch über laute und leise Gefühle (‘A children’s book about emotions both quiet and loud’) there is mention of mum’s best friend Paul, a black musician, but no mention of a daddy. Ada is particularly fond of Paul because he takes her seriously in her hesitancy (sometimes, anyway), and sometimes also in her moments of anxiety and of happiness. So how might one view this little person without either diminishing her or making her seem larger than she actually is? Some people say that she’s ‘several centimetres too small’, whereas others maintain that she’s more like a butterfly that hasn’t yet fully emerged from its chrysalis.
One way of seeing Ada’s life is to follow the lead of writer Stefanie Höfler and illustrator Philip Waechter. The two of them look at Ada’s life in conditions of sunshine, clouds, rain and storms, then return once again at the end of their account to sunshine, and indeed to all the people and places that define Ada’s life during the summer preceding her first day at school. And of course as well as Mum, Max and Paul, that group also includes Granny, who is inclined to conduct her own life rather differently from how one might have expected. Then there’s Laila, Ada’s best friend, who a few years earlier had fled from a war zone with her mother and her aunt. The two children met on the swings at the age of three. Laila’s friend, the curious boy Linus, who keeps giving Ada jealous looks, is also important, as is her favourite kindergarten teacher, who is also going to become her class-teacher at big school. And we mustn’t forget the chicken Stracciatella, given to Ada by her granny – against the wishes of her mum.
In the course of numerous brief chapters recounting the events that matter to Ada, Stefanie Höfler as the proximate and well-disposed authorial narrator offers insights into the ups and downs of Ada’s emotions, some of them muted, some of them loudly expressed. What of the ants that swarm around in her tummy as she discovers more and more about the world each day, as she experiences more and more adventures in familiar and unfamiliar situations and undergoes a succession of events both joyful and unsettling; as she passes through anger, sadness and moments of pure happiness? These fulminating ants are simply part and parcel of her richly colourful but occasionally also dark-hued life. And when in this confusing world places of safety and security are found, as they are by Ada, then – despite bouts of timidity – her spirit of curiosity and her bold embracing of new experiences are much more pronounced than they might have been in the absence of such places. The sun-drenched afternoons spent on the large fluffy rug in her mum’s bedroom represent one of these means of finding refuge, so too does being enfolded in her mum’s arms and thus having the opportunity to snuggle up into her hair, not to mention her mum’s warm, protective hands, while out in the back yard there is also the giant rhododendron bush that serves as a take-off and landing place for a spaceship designed for saving the lives of bees, butterflies and ladybirds at risk from sudden torrents of rain, and also as a good spot for drawing a pirate ship in the dirt capable of navigating its way around any headland however precipitous. And then in addition of course there is that place that remains magical no matter what the summer weather chooses to do: the open-air swimming pool.
It is astonishing how vast the universe of a six-year-old child can be! Stefanie Höfler writes about this universe not as an outsider but as though she were actually in it herself; it is a universe that she observes with precision and subtlety. Displaying great empathy and using language rich in expressive imagery she evokes the full gamut of emotions, the quiet as well as the loud, that Ada experiences in the face of this wondrous world that day after day fills the child with amazement; and sometimes provokes her to tears. Every couple of pages Philip Waechter’s humorous and colourful vignettes in the style of a comic book serve to illustrate Ada’s life in a way that perfectly complements the narrative. Thus flashes of lightning come bursting forth from mum’s eyes when she is in a rage; Linus and Ada suddenly turn into wizened little naked mole-rats. And the vistas of the open-air swimming pool in various different kinds of weather make us long to get our swimming togs out of the drawer right then and there and go and join the fun. Let’s wait and see whether Ada will manage by the end of the summer to overcome her terrible horror of putting her head under water. After all, for the time being at least she no longer even spares a thought for Paul’s bet that she she’ll manage it in the end; but if only she weren’t besieged by all these niggling bouts of curiosity that began in the very tips of her toes and are making themselves ever more pervasively felt…
Translated by John Reddick
By Siggi Seuß
Siggi Seuß, freelance journalist, radio script writer and translator, has been writing reviews of books for children and young people for many years.
