As of: February 19, 2024, 9:50 a.m
By: Laura Hindelang
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TV star and comedian Anke Engelke has written a new edition of the children's book “The Bunny School”.
The book has met with harsh criticism, particularly from farmers.
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Many adults know “The Bunny School” from their childhood.
No wonder, as the classic children's book is already a hundred years old.
The story of Albert Sixtus tells of the everyday school life of the rabbit siblings Hans and Grete.
The strict teacher - shown on the book cover with round glasses and a round stomach - warns the young rabbits about the fox.
In addition to virtues such as hard work and order, the book is intended to illustrate a lesson that parents are only too happy to instill in their children: never go with strangers.
Anke Engelke rewrites the “Bunny School”.
TV star and comedian Anke Engelke has rewritten the well-known children's book for the anniversary and published it in a modernized version by Thienemann-Esslinger Verlag.
The cover photo of the “new bunny school” already makes the big difference from the original clear: Hoppich the bunny and Brehm the fox are not enemies, but friends - which is partly due to the fact that the fox eats a vegan diet.
After the bunny girl makes friends with the fox, the school class sets off on an excursion led by the teacher.
The original by Albert Sixtus is written in the four-bar trochee and was published a hundred years ago.
© HRSchulz/Imago
When they reach their destination, a field, the rabbit students notice a barrier tape.
A sign at the edge of the field features a rabbit skull and the words “Caution Poison”.
So the villain is the farmer who sprays poison and crushes animals with his combine harvester.
Hoppich almost ends up under the combine harvester.
Fox Brehm can save her at the last second.
It was important to the publisher that there was also a conflict in the new edition, Anke Engelke recently told the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
.
At the center of the tension is the relationship between humans and nature.
Farmers as an enemy?
Farmers are outraged
Anke Engelke read The Bunny School herself as a child.
“I am in favor of these books continuing to be there, but I am also in favor of changes to individual places,” she said in an interview with the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
.
The publisher approached her with the idea of a new edition.
In their version, people are the enemy.
With the farmer representing all other people and their treatment of the planet.
Children should learn “that we as humans do a lot of things wrong,” says the author.
The story should stimulate conversation.
Instead, the book sparked a discussion.
Farmers in particular express negative comments about the “new bunny school”.
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In the new edition, children learn the following: “Farmers poison the environment, hunters shoot cute animals dead and combine harvesters are dangerous things from the devil,” writes the
Agrar Today
portal, for example .
An editor of the Bavarian
Agricultural Weekly
summarizes his criticism in a poem: “After the book, the children are smarter: only the farmer is to blame for evil.” Another angry farmer criticizes in a Facebook post that Anke Engelke is the members of his profession as a “hunter, murderer of animals and people, as a poisoner of all animals, people, soil, rivers”.
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The debate is particularly heated on social networks.
There are even more negative comments under an Instagram post from the publisher:
“It’s unbelievable that you try to drum into children at a young age who the supposedly bad guys are and who the good guys are.”
“Children can be manipulated, animals cannot.
This book is inflammatory.”
“I'm totally disappointed.
A children’s book like that doesn’t work.”
“I see zero educational benefit in this kind of glorified narrative.
Completely wrong."
“This publisher apparently has no qualms about harming children with intellectual stupidity.”
There is also encouragement in the comments.
And it is also clear on Facebook that not everyone can understand the farmers' criticism.
For example,
in a post under an article from the
editorial network Germany it says:
“Ridiculous, the farmers, as is so often the case at the moment.
I’m happy about the book.”
“But the farmers have a really short fuse at the moment.”
"It's a book.
How can you get so artificially upset about this?”
“Great, that’s how I found out about this great book.
I wish Anke Engelke much success.”
Opinions also differ on Amazon, where the book has so far been rated 3.3 stars.
While some readers see the friendship between the two completely different animals as a successful integration story, others are outraged by the vegan fox and the “denigration of the farmers”.
In any case, Anke Engelke never intended to make farmers the villain, she emphasized in an interview with the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
.