Girl in Flames from Struwwelpeter Giant Coffee

The two books that I remember my grandmother reading to us most frequently were one published in and one from . Their tone and underlying morale were more than a Century apart. What she read us was the original Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car () a children’s book written by Ian Fleming, better known as the creator of Bond, for his son Caspar, with illustrations by John Birmingham. Der Struwwelpeter () (or Shockheaded Peter) is a German children’s book by Heinrich Hoffmann. It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story provides the title of the whole book. Hoffmann wrote Struwwelpeter in reaction to the lack of good children’s books. Intending to buy a picture book as a Christmas present for his three-year-old son, Hoffmann instead wrote and illustrated his own book, In he was persuaded by friends to publish the book anonymously as Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3–6 Jahren (Funny Stories and Whimsical Pictures with Beautifully Colored Panels for Children Aged 3 to 6). For third edition, published in , the title changed to Struwwelpeter, the name of the character in the first story. The book became popular among children throughout Europe. In , Mark Twain wrote his own translation of the book but because of copyright issues, Twain’s “Slovenly Peter” was not published until years after his death in . (Wikipedia)