Media update 282 (last of 2015)

Reading: Cornelia Funke, Drachenreiter, 42-153/448. Listening: Die 30 schönsten Kinderlieder, Teil 1 (65 min.); Die 30 schönsten Kinderlieder, Teil 2 (64 min.); Paul Maar, Jaguar und Neinguar. Gedichte (48 min.); Gerd Köster, Die fabelhafte Welt der Tiere: Fische und Vögel, 0-49:00; Ulrich Janßen, Ulla Steuernagel, Die Kinder-Uni, "Warum lachen wir über Witze?" (0-27:00); A. A. Milne, Pu der Bär, (about 20 min.); Pinkus Tulim, Jo Raketen-Po: Ein Pupsbuch (160 min.); George R. R. Martin, Das Lied der Eisdrache (60 min.); Michael Ende, Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer, 0-3.53. 

All of the above took place on a roadtrip, that's the reason for all the listening. 

 The Kinder-Uni nonfiction series is similar to the Albert E. audiobooks we have been listening to for the past two years, but it is a good bit more advanced in terms of both the language and the subject matter. It's also not quite as good in terms of the presentation. Albert E. audiobooks have a nice balance between presentation of the topical knowledge and a little story that exemplifies the material in the lives of children characters. So far (half an hour in), the Kinder-Uni is just straight-up knowledge-presentation, which is a little boring. We'll see. The topics themselves are interesting and reflective. 

The George Martin story—wow, just brilliant. And I like that the main character is a little girl. I think J found it a little grim, and it does have a sad ending, but it's the kind of ending that stays with you. 

The Tulim story is pretty funny. It's very much in the spirit of Roald Dahl in terms of valorization of lower bodily functions, the utter contemptibility of parental and authority figures, and the nastiness of spoiled children. I would say, however, that it goes on just a bit too long. The frobscottle episode in the BFG was only one episode in a complex story; here, farting does all the work. J found it funny for about an hour, then I think he started to tune out. 

The Jim Knopf book is our first encounter with Michael Ende, whom I've been waiting a long time to get to. This is a wonderful, endlessly inventive story and J loves it, wanting to hear many sections several times over and interrupting to give observations and commentary. 

I was a bit worried at first that the main character, being a little black boy, would be "essentialized" in a racial way, but apart (so far) from one use of the word Neger (see here for previous commentary), and the fact that black skin is associated with dirt and soot (in the figure of the locomotive driver), that has not been the case. I did pause the story at Neger—J asked what the word meant—and explain about it at some length. 

The book is noted for it's coded critique of Nazism; that's in the later sections, in the dragon city, which we have not yet gotten to. 

2015
Total audio: 80.33 hours
Total video: 95.26 hours
Age 6.02.31