When children learn things that make sense, that's a good thing at first.
For the grades, for making an impression on friends, for life.
However, facts and figures tend to pull the plug on imagination (see parents, teachers, neighbors, tax officials).
Once you know that Santa Claus doesn't exist, it's also clear that his reindeer troupe doesn't exist, which in turn eliminates Rudolph and his red nose as part of reality.
Kai Spanke
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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On the other hand, sure knowledge opens up pretty possibilities.
Anyone who has learned, for example, that saber-toothed tigers once roamed the earth and that the nut gourmets on the balcony, who are closely related to rats (yes, yes), are called squirrels, will particularly enjoy a mixture of both, the saber-toothed squirrel.
The fact that this creature doesn't actually exist makes it even better.
Juri Johansson came up with it, and it comes to life in his new book about little-known animals thanks to Stefanie Jeschke's cheeky illustrations.
Hunger?
Quickly call the herdmen!
The saber-tooth squirrel is one of the self-confident contemporaries, it smiles a bit vainly, shows its muscles in a bodybuilder pose, wears a gold chain and puts its right paw on an acorn as if it had just conquered the fruit.
At night it “roams through the woods bawling with its gang”, which can definitely be annoying for ear witnesses.
However, nobody should mess with the squirrel, because it masters umpteen martial arts and is a bearer of the green blade of grass (who needs a black belt anyway?).
The animal probably has its canine teeth, which are up to five centimeters long, “for showing off”, which is probably the best reason of all.
However, it cannot crack nuts with it.
As soon as it gets culinary, you should stick to the herdmen anyway.
Juri Johansson insists that, "ratatouille" or not, they are the "best cooks in the entire animal kingdom."
Herdmen taste not only sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, but also tasty and not-so-tasty.
Humans can do that too, but it's more comical with representatives of the mongoose family.
The example portrayed by Stefanie Jeschke wears an apron, handles a pan and has buck teeth.
Neither chicken nor fish
Weasel, Wiesosel and Whysel could certainly explain why all this is the case.
The trio is curious by nature and does not belong to the rodents, as is often wrongly assumed, but to, well, right: questioning animals.
They could definitely have wonderful disputes with the herdman because, as the genus reveals, they feed themselves mainly on questions.
Whether they are tasty or not so tasty probably depends on the individual case.
There are many precursors to this bestiary of cuteness, think of Christian Morgenstern's Nasobēm, Wilhelm Busch's “Natural History Alphabet”, Joachim Ringelnatz's animal poems, or simply the imagination of most children.
Loriot's stone louse even appears in fictitious encyclopedia articles, but they don't contain sentences as beautiful as those by Juri Johansson: "Particularly talented flutes make music in world-class ensembles such as the Schweinfurter Sängersäuen, the Quakenbrücker Jellyfish Quartet or the Chemnitz Chameleon Choir." Or: "For a long time, the chickenfish thought it was the only one who was neither one nor the other, neither chicken nor fish." Or: "The paint litter's favorite colors are probably blue, pink and glitter."
Of course, we feel that all these beings should be strictly protected.
Incidentally, this also applies to her friends such as the floating whale or the peacock whale, the messy isopod or the pout who is always offended in a liver sausage way.
And we also think that Juri Johansson and Stefanie Jeschke could get together again to further enrich our animal world - after all, we are in the sixth mass extinction - with previously undiscovered species.
Juri Johansson and Stefanie Jeschke: "Of tortoiseshells, herdmen and big-mouth rhinos". The small encyclopedia of previously little known animals.
Kraus Verlag, Berlin 2022. 44 p., ill., hardcover, €14.90.
From 5 years