STAAKE: Everything that would be nightmarish to an eight-year-old, playing with matches and burning in a fire, sucking your thumb and this tall tailor comes busting down the door of your home with a huge pair of nine-foot scissors and simply lops off your thumbs.
MCCARTHY: Staake says the pictures inside Slovenly Peter are even more disturbing than the cover. He comes equipped, yes, I'm afraid, with scissors sharp as razor blades. The great tall tailor always comes to little boys that suck their thumbs. BOB STAAKE (Artist): (Reading from Der Struwwelpeter) One day Mom said, Conrad dear, I must go and leave you here. The book also helped set the stage for children's book classics like Where the Wild Things Are and the beloved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.Īrtist Bob Staake says his parents introduced him to Slovenly Peter, and it's still a rite of passage for children and grandchildren of many German immigrants. But the stories have lived on, influencing cartoon bad boys, the Katzenjammer Kids and later Dennis the Menace. MCCARTHY: Der Struwwelpeter had a huge following in the States, up until World War I, when anti-German sentiment caused a dip in popularity. She holds up the book cover showing Peter, an unruly boy with a mess of out of control hair and sharp fingernails half as long as his arms. MCCARTHY: Linda Kaplan sits surrounded by her grandchildren. LINDA KAPLAN (Grandmother): Come on kids. Loosely translated as Slovenly Peter, this new version of the 19th century collection of cautionary tales looks like a typical children's book. Like many children's stories of that era, Der Struwwelpeter was written to frighten kids into good behavior.įew Americans today know the book, but its influence can be found in other familiar stories. One of the most popular children's books of 1845 is back in bookstores.
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