The giant killer

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The giant slayer (original title: The Giant-Slayer ) is a children's book by the Canadian writer Iain Lawrence . It tells the story of the young, imaginative girl Laurie, who visits her polio friend Dickie in the hospital. There she tells him and the other patients a vivid story about fantastic beings. Topics such as friendship and imagination are taken up.

The Giant-Slayer was published in English by Random House in 2009 and in German in 2017 by Freie Geistesleben . The book was translated into German by Alexandra Ernst and is recommended by the publisher for children aged 10 and over.

Among other things, the book was nominated for the German Youth Literature Award 2018.

content

Laurie Valentine lived in North America with her father in the 1950s. Since he works as a fundraiser for a polio-fighting organization called the March of Dimes and his wife Mrs. Valentine died in cot, the girl spends a lot of time with her nanny Mrs. Strawberry.

Due to the widespread and highly contagious disease polio, Laurie is not allowed to be in crowded places such as playgrounds or swimming pools. Because of this, she doesn't have a single boyfriend until the spring of 1995 when a boy named Dickie Espinosa moves into the block. The two are inseparable from their first meeting and play together in the nearby stream. This annoys Laurie's father and nanny, who forbid her from further such actions. A short time later, Laurie learns that Dickie is lying in an iron lung in Bishop's Memorial Hospital. She wants to visit her boyfriend, but neither her father nor Mrs. Strawberry want to allow her to stay in the hospital. Laurie begins to secretly go to the hospital. There she meets Dickie's roommates Carolyn and Chip, as well as the cheerful nurse Mrs. Freeman, who initially only allows her admission as an exception without parental permission.

Laurie begins to tell the sick and bed-tied children an imaginative story about a giant killer named Jimmy, who meets many interesting people on his journey. As her visits increase, she continues to tell her story and learns about the children's personal stories, which means she gets to know them better. Over time, Carolyn also becomes friends with Laurie's presence, although she was skeptical and mean to the girl at first. More children will learn about the story Laurie tells and will sit down to listen during their visits. In the course of Laurie's fictional story, some of the children recognize themselves in the characters, since the characters' careers are similar to that of the sick children.

Laurie's father learns of her secret visits and picks her up from the hospital the same day a polio vaccine comes on the market. After the two make up, Laurie is one of the first children to be injected with the vaccine. The next day, she visits her friends in the hospital and continues the story. As she makes her way home, Laurie gets a headache and collapses. She is brought back to the clinic by a nurse and placed in an iron lung. Over the next few days it turns out that the vaccine mistakenly contained living pathogens and thus infected many children who had received it. Laurie's father and her nanny Mrs. Strawberry are shocked by the news and visit the girl in the hospital. It is there that Mr. Valentine meets his daughter's new friends, learns of Laurie's story and regrets his lack of attention to his daughter. The sick children try to end the story and eventually, with Laurie's help, do so after she wakes up from her coma.

When Laurie is fully on her feet again, Carolyn is allowed to go home and Dickie and Chip are moved to a larger hospital. Mr. Valentine informs his daughter that the fight against polio continues and promises to pay more attention to her in the future.

characters

main characters

Laurie Valentine

Laurie is creative and has a lot of imagination, which she expresses in her drawings and self-made cards, which she also calls 'cards of her life'. She is also lonely because she is not allowed to play outside with other children and her father hardly has any time for her. She wears large glasses, which always slide down her nose and which she has to push up again and again. Although Laurie has respect for her nanny and usually follows her rules, she develops her own mind over time and, for example, illegally plays with her new friend Dickie at the nearby creek. She is pissed off when she gets in trouble for it and also when she is not allowed to visit Dickie, who is ill a short time later, in the hospital. Because of this, Laurie does it secretly. In the clinic where she visits Dickie regularly, she wants to put the patient in a good mood with her story about the giant killer Jimmy. In doing so, she tries to be empathetic and not to pity the children. After Laurie fell ill with an unfinished vaccine herself, she was also placed in an iron lung. However, she recovers and can breathe and walk independently again after a short time.

Giant Slayer Jimmy

Jimmy is a boy invented by Laurie who lives with his parents in a tavern called "Zum Drachenzahn". As a toddler he was bewitched by his father's wish and stopped growing from the age of three. Since Jimmy's mother is leaving and his father doesn't love him as his own son, the boy decides to run away from home on his 12th birthday. On his way through the magical world painted by Laurie, he meets many different people, beings and animals who accompany him on his journey from time to time. When Jimmy learns from a witch that he was born a giant killer and for this reason has the task of killing the dangerous giant Collosso, he makes this the goal of his journey. Jimmy succeeds with the help of other characters and is hailed for what he did. He meets his mother again and lives happily with her until the end of his days.

Minor characters

Mr. Valentine

Mr. Valentine raises his daughter Laurie Valentine alone because his wife died giving birth to their daughter. He works with passion for the polio-fighting aid organization March of Dimes and therefore has little time for his daughter, whom he loves unconditionally and wants to protect from any disease. For Laurie her father is "the second smartest man in the world" after St. Nicholas and "a kind of soldier" (p. 12), since he compares the fight against polio to a war. He is a quiet and introverted man who wears a brown suit, felt hat and tie every day. While others appear distracted, Mrs. Strawberry finds only that the man "is so busy with big things that he just doesn't have time for the little things" (p. 13).

Mrs. Strawberry

Mrs. Strawberry is Laurie Valentine's nanny. She admires the girl's imagination and loves it like her own daughter. For this reason, she is very strict and does not allow Laurie to do anything that could cause her to become infected with polio. At the same time, she worries about Laurie's loneliness and often speaks to her husband about the subject. Mrs. Strawberry believes that because of the many prohibitions, the child thinks she is a "terrible old woman" (p. 14).

Dickie Espinosa

The boy moved into Laurie's neighborhood in the spring of 1955 and quickly became friends with her. The two children play together and Dickie teaches his new girlfriend to operate a model railroad. Dickie is receiving private tuition as he was often beaten up in his old school. After contracting polio, he lies in an iron lung in the hospital. He recognizes himself as the first in Laurie's story and likes to listen to his girlfriend. When Dickie is moved to another hospital, his parents follow him and move in with his aunt.

Dickie identifies himself with the enigmatic unicorn hunter Kahn, which is partly due to the fact that he often dreams of Khan and so by chance can predict many of the hunter's deeds. Outwardly, Kahn looks more like an animal than a human, as his clothing is made of skin and fur. When they first met, he gave the dragon slayer Jimmy a lucky talisman made from a bone ball. He later frees him from the captivity of the knotters who hold him and many gnomes to work. Khan is enthusiastic about Jimmy's courage and supports him on the journey to the giant's castle. After the successful mission, he offers Jimmy to accompany him on the hunt, but Jimmy feels determined to take a different path. Khan rides towards the horizon and disappears "into a wild and deserted world" (p. 305).

Carolyn Jasmine Jewels

Carolyn is 14 years old and "as beautiful as a movie star" (p. 41) with her long blonde hair. She has been in the Iron Lung for eight years and has long since stopped receiving regular visits from her parents, who have had another child and travel with them to many beautiful places that Carolyn never sees. Because of this, she is frustrated and angry and behaves defiantly towards her roommates and the nurses. She finds Laurie's story childish at first, but over time she likes to listen. Slowly she opens up to the other patients. At the end of the novel, Carolyn is allowed to leave the Iron Lung and, at her parents' request, go home, where she should be connected to a ventilator.

She identifies with the moor witch Jasmin, who as a beautiful girl leaves her loving gypsy family and returns to her parents and sister towards the end of the story. The witch lives behind the bottomless moor, has looked like a frog since she was lonely and for this reason only rarely receives visitors. She can be strongly influenced and is afraid of the giant Collosso. However, since she does not show this and acts confidently, the surrounding animals listen to her. Jimmy and his companions Khan and Finnegan take them to the giant, but since Jasmin cannot leave their moor, the group fills the wagon with mud and the witch sits down. With Jimmy's request to the Wishbringer to let them all live happily ever after, the witch is back to what she was as a young girl. Only their external appearance remains the same.

chip

Chip has been in the Iron Lung for about a year. He is uncomfortable when everyone else receives visitors or mail, for which reason he asks Miss Freeman to get photos and cards from other people at flea markets and give them to him as mail. Some photos show cars and thus he pretends to know a lot about the vehicles and to be able to repair them with his father. In truth, however, he hardly remembers his father, as he has been growing up in different foster families since he was six. He is enthusiastic about Laurie and her story and eagerly asks questions about what is happening. When the other children identify with individual characters in the story and he is assigned to someone too, he has to admit that the photos don't really show him and that he really doesn't know how to fix cars.

He identifies with the rider Finnegan Flanders, who pretends to be the best drover on the great northern route. In truth, however, he is not a charioteer and does not know how to repair the wagon destroyed by Collosso. Finnegan Flanders meets the giant killer Jimmy and the unicorn hunter Khan, after he chased free roaming oxen into town with the help of actual drovers to sell them there. He joins them and accompanies them to the giant's castle to kill him. After this is done, he is the only one to enjoy the cheers of the crowd and rides off on his saddle with six young women. He later learns how to build wagons and successfully sells the 'Flanders wagon' model. He goes on great adventures and explores the whole world.

James Miner

James is a young patient at Bishop's Memorial Hospital who hears the story and joins when Laurie visits. He is always face down on a roller board to train his arm and leg muscles. James hardly remembers his mother and his father owns a cheap grocery store, in which James always had to help him before he fell ill. He is in the hospital because his father let him take part in a polio test in exchange for financial reimbursement, which should help to find a vaccine. James is a bright and interested boy who likes to leaf through magazines while Laurie tells her story. Towards the end, James learns to walk again, after which he is photographed and featured in the newspaper. The article describes the boy as a "polio pioneer" (p. 342) who nearly lost his life to advance medical science and without whom the disease would probably never have been conquered.

He identifies with the giant killer Jimmy, who was also raised to work by a common father and without a mother figure. In addition, both were born during a thunderstorm.

Miss Freeman

Miss Freeman is a lovely black haired nurse at Bishop's Memorial Hospital. She cares deeply about the young patients and allows Laurie to visit her friend Dickie without her parents' consent. The nurse is friendly and does not show any unpleasant situations, such as the smell when changing the bedpans. You can always see her "with a radiant smile and a happy voice" (p. 36).

Literary criticism

The giant killer received an overall very positive response from the press. The Süddeutsche Zeitung praises the taking up of the largely unknown section of medical history and describes Iain Lawrence's work as a "disturbing novel that captivates the reader" and, through the power of the imagination, is able to create cohesion and solidarity between sick people To encourage children. Shortly after the German translation was published, Deutschlandfunk listed the novel as one of the seven best books for children.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Riesentöter, Geistesleben.de, accessed on July 13, 2019
  2. ↑ Book: The giant killer. In: jugendliteratur.org. Working group for youth literature, accessed on July 11, 2019 .
  3. ↑ The Giant Slayer by Iain Lawrence. In: buecher.de. Retrieved July 12, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Ute Wegmann: Critique - The best 7 books for young readers in November (archive). In: deutschlandfunk.de. Deutschlandfunk, November 4, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 .