At some point, I was standing in a bookshop looking for a present for my niece. And then I found it: a story I’ve known since childhood. It was in my reader back in primary school. My parents tell me that at some point they knew it almost by heart. I have five siblings, and they practised reading this story with every one of us. I think even all these years later, you can see a “Oh no, not again” in my parents’ eyes whenever they hear “Kantapper, Kantapper in den Wald hinein” (roughly: “clip-clop, clip-clop, into the woods”).
And now I’m the old uncle giving the book to my nieces and nephews. After all, my siblings deserve the joy of reading “Kantapper, Kantapper in den Wald hinein” aloud, too. And yes, I know that’s mean. But at least I never gave anyone a drum kit … as I once threatened to.