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Carola does such a massive yawn that her cuddly toy penguin is quite astonished. She is as tired as her mouth is wide. Before she can slip into the world of dreams, however, she has to cross the threshold that separates day from night. This is a task that even brave children find difficult to pull off at the end of each day. And — as Manuela Olten’s illustrations and Jakob Hein’s and Kurt Krömer’s text in the picture book Gute Nacht, Carola make abundantly clear — Carola is certainly to be counted among the bold. We learn that nothing holds any terrors for Carola, not even the diving board at the swimming pool or black, barking dogs. Such a child does cause her parents considerable anxiety, however: a girl that is daunted by nothing and no one — is that normal?
“Well, you need to be afraid of cars, so that you don’t just run into the road”, her mother tells her. But she underestimates Carola, who knows that fear is a poor counsellor and that, while you need to be careful in the face of traffic, you mustn’t be afraid. Manuela Olten depicts the traffic in the form of spacecraft, with Carola making her own way between them with pigtails flying. The real test awaits her one night when she is lying in her dark, dark bedroom with no one for company except her trusty penguin. Manuela shows her struggle to go to sleep by means of a page full of little snapshot images. In this sequence of miniatures, arranged as though in a printer’s type case, we see Carola’s discomfort in detail. Then suddenly a deep, dark voice rings out from the gloom beneath her bed. ‘Badness’ has come to have his say. What on earth can that be, ‘Badness’? Carola immediately starts an argument: there can’t be any such thing.
The co-authors Jakob Hein and Kurt Krömer develop a narrative strategy specially tailored to their young readers, who as likely as not are still afraid of the dark. Their fear is brought into the open and identified as such, but Carola, the kid from next door, comes to their aid with her whole panoply of unshakeable self-confidence. We’re not going to let ourselves be intimidated: that’s the message. Carola thus immediately takes a look under the bed and, hanging upside down over the edge, starts a conversation with the intruder. To see off Badness, you first have to objectify it. Manuela Olten does this by creating a fat, round, short-legged figure with a miserable face, huge mouth and mistrustful eyes. This monster disconcerts Carola, and a few tears flow. But Carola keeps the conversation going, fires off a succession of arguments, and uncovers the ridiculous side of Badness, thus step by step defusing the threat represented by the monster, who ends up displaying a shy side, and for once finds himself being accepted as a tame creature rather than merely being feared on account of his nasty tricks.
Both the narrative and the illustrations in this book work by establishing a pattern of rhythmic repetition serving to encourage trust. The plot evolves through a sequence of gentle shifts that recapitulate things we already know whilst simultaneously moving on to the next stage of the story. And because the topic is approached with great care, even the hairy monster can be readily integrated into the pictorial narrative. Persistent questioning, steadfastness and self-belief are Carola’s defiant recipe for success.
In this way, then, a picture book takes shape that shows children how they can stay true to themselves even when dangers threaten. The story is played out in bright colours against a dark background, giving it freshness and vitality. The clever layout also contributes to this effect by maintaining a kind of optical dialogue between the various pages. The illustrations are also slanted over on occasion, with the result that the rigid format of the book can be broken up and variety created. In the end the threat posed by the monster completely evaporates, and Carola would thus be in a position to offer consolation to other children who think they have caught sight of Badness. “You can’t have done,” she would tell them. “You see, Badness lives under my bed. And he’s actually quite nice.”
Thomas Linden
November 2011
[Translated by Helena Ragg-Kirkby]
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