In addition to text changes, changes were also made to the original drawings.
On February 24, 2024, the Stuttgart-based Thienemann Verlag will publish two new editions of the children’s books “Jim Knopf and Lukas the Engine Driver” and “Jim Knopf and the Wilde 13” by Michael Ende. As the publisher explains in a press release, both linguistic and visual changes have been made. This was done in consultation with the heirs of the author Michal Ende, who died in 1995.
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“So that children who read the books now do not adopt these linguistic elements into their everyday vocabulary, the estate and the publisher have decided, after careful consideration, to delete the N-word and reduce the stereotypical descriptions,” the publisher writes in the statement. One is sure to act in the spirit of Michael Ende (1929-1995).
Michael Ende’s “counterimage to the National Socialist ideology”
With these novels, Ende drew “a counter-image to the National Socialist ideology that he himself was confronted with in his youth.” “At the end of the early 1960s, Michael deliberately only put the N-word in Mr. Sleeve’s mouth to point out the lack of cosmopolitanism of this typical subject,” the statement continues.
Changes were also made to FJ Tripp’s original drawings. According to the publisher, Tripp deliberately exaggerated the figures with drawings. Here, special attention is paid to the depiction of the figure of Luke: “It is the thick pink lips and the black skin, which merges without limitation into the black hair, that can be irritating when viewed today and against the background of black people’s experiences of racism,” says Thienemann Verlag. For this reason, the decision was made to revise the representations.
The changes only apply to the new editions of the color-illustrated versions from 2015. The editions with the original black and white illustrations are available unchanged and will appear with an afterword for classification purposes, according to Thienemann Verlag.