Pear (Herburger)

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Pear is the heroine of a series of short stories with adventure stories by Günter Herburger . The fantastic children's book character, based on a light bulb , was invented by the author's son, Daniel Herburger. Published with success in Germany from the 1970s , the series attracted attention at the time due to its socially critical and anti-authoritarian content. The books were illustrated by Daniel Herburger.

Emergence

The foreword to the first volume with pear stories shows that Herburger's son asked his father for a bedtime story “something to think about” in his younger years , namely “about pear”. He had indicated "the street lamp in front of his window, the light of which shines into his room all night".

“He wanted to know why it was burning, why the lightbulb in it was fragile, why it had a gas in it. He wanted to know everything and I knew little. I've been telling stories about pears ever since. "

- Günter Herburger : Foreword to pear can do anything

characterization

According to the author, its inventor also made significant contributions to the heroine’s further investment in Herburger’s stories:

“You could always tell stories about pears, he said, she works at night, and when she has slept in, she experiences adventures during the day. I am corrected, praise and rebuke meet equally, but one law must never be broken: pear must always win, it must be better than everyone else. The pear is not a person, but a technical object with human properties. "

- Günter Herburger : Foreword to pear can do anything

Pear has a heart for all those in need and the oppressed, but also laughs a lot and does some mischief. The figure possessed the "courage of a space traveler, the sense of justice of Jesus, the robustness and longevity of a turtle, the enthusiasm of Lenin and the beauty of computer parts", is how the author characterizes his heroine.

In 1970 Herburger published his first two children's stories with pear flies to Mars / pear in the clothes factory , which he told his son at the cot at Hanser . In 1971 two books with a total of 52 pear stories, including the first two, were published by Luchterhand : pear can do everything and pear can do even more . The author followed them up with the volume pear burns through in 1975 . At this point in time, more than 100 stories with pear as the main character had been written.

After that, the volume of short stories Pear Returns (1996) was published over twenty years later . This book was again made at the suggestion of Herburger's son, who asked him about Birne's possible return to a world after the concept of communism and socialism had virtually been eliminated by history and social change. In his early pear books, Herburger deliberately used “no child's tone”, he tried “to treat children as equal partners” and not to keep them from thinking by belittling the world, he once said.

reception

Christoph Nettersheim sees the "anti-authoritarian pear children's books" published in the 1970s as very successful contributions to German children's and youth literature. In 1972, Leona Siebenschön reported in Die Zeit about Herburger's inspiring readings in German kindergartens and the use of the stories in primary school lessons: “The subject matter must reflect social reality and encourage children to play and talk. For this, however, books are necessary that are not consumer goods, but are suitable as templates for critical processing. Children must be aware of their social situation and be encouraged to think about possibilities for change, ”a contemporary educator is quoted as saying. Pear sees Siebenschön, even if Herburger never conceals his socially critical convictions, because not as “left literature for the nursery”, but primarily the stories “adventure and information, nonsense and humor, life and not educational political Slogans ". Pear was also available on a speech record and as a radio play in the 1970s. Collected volumes and new editions of the pear stories also indicate the considerable reception at this time. The books later waned.

2009 in connection with the by the EU Commission worked Directive 2005/32 / EC , the phase out of conventional incandescent relates does to his children's classic pear anything can addressed Herburger commented recently: "pear could the EU Commission switch off ”, but wants the population to notice for themselves what they have lost in conventional light bulbs.

Publications

Books

  • Pear flies to Mars / pear in the clothing factory. Two children's stories , 1970
  • Pear can do everything , 1971
  • Pear can do even more , 1971
  • Pear blows , 1975
  • Pear stories. A selection , 1978
  • Pear. The most beautiful stories from Pear can do everything, Pear can do even more and Pear burns through, 1980
  • Pear Returns , 1996

reading

As early as 1971, Klaus Wagenbach published the story Pear Makes Advertising from the second volume of pears . Pear can be read even more by the author himself on his 7th record. Why is the banana crooked? alongside readings by authors such as Ernst Jandl , Peter Bichsel , Günter Bruno Fuchs and Peter Rühmkorf .

radio play

In August 1975, Radio Bremen and the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft produced a setting of the stories from the first volume. The author himself contributed to them as a narrator, while Sabine Postel spoke about pear . This production also appeared on a record.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Günter Herburger: Pear can do everything . Luchterhand, 1971, foreword
  2. ^ Günter Herburger in: Microsoft Encarta
  3. ↑ Leona Siebenschön: Pear brings life to the booth . In: Die Zeit , No. 7/1972
  4. ^ Change of light - Farewell to the light bulb - Herburger . ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ARD media library: SWR2 Matinee  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ardmediathek.de