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Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver
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Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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Fantastic, fun and deeper than it seems
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I love this book, I mean, my little daughter, 6, loves it :-)
Michael Ende was a master, perhaps "the" master would be more accurate, at crafting children's books that give the parents something to think about as well.
The most important thing about Jim Knopf (I've only read it in the original German) is of course that it's FUN. I can't imagine any kid not being totally engrossed in the story once it starts. Chapter for chapter, the story moves very quickly from one adventure to the next, always building up just the right amount of tension and suspense without ever becomming gratuitously shocking.
The story itself is about as original possible, it's all Michael Ende's imagination and there are no clichA s, no "been there, done that" material. Of course, I can't speak for the english translation, but the language used by Ende in the original is a little advanced for really small kids. Personally, I see it a chance to "smarten up" as opposed to the usual "dumbing down" found in most (all?) modern children's books.
Like I said above, there's more to Jim Button than is first apparent. One example, among many: the Dragon City. I don't know how it's expressed in the English version but in the original, the dragons are mean and cruel and dirty and... UNHAPPY. Their secret wish is to be "saved" from the evil of their city and to become re-born as the "Golden Drangon of Wisdom". They are literally awaiting a "Saviour" and Frau Mahlzahn (the dragon that held the children captive, don't know her english name) is not so much "captured" in the way a superficial reading of the book would suggest but rather saved. She is transported through the cleansing waters of the Yellow River where her fire goes out and her evil spirit is extinguished. This is a baptism, and on a very grand scale.
Another: The "Scheinriese", the Giant who apears bigger and scarier the further away you are from him. When I read this part to my daughter, she said, "It's sort of like my swimming class". I thought, "Huh, how'd you get so smart?". She made the connection herself. Her first two swimming lesson have been horrifying for her, even though they're really completely harmless fun and the instructors are wonderfully gentle and patient. So, she recognized that sometimes things seem a lot scarier before we actually confront them and that most fear exists in our imagination and it can overcome. Rarely is anything as bad as we think it's going to be.
Michael Ende was in a class by himself. He wrote serious literature that also appeals to children. He invented a genre and he was the master. Although his other books are more "mature" than this one, Jim Button and Luke remain my, yes, my :-) favorite. |
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