Gripping, fearless and yes, also funny: two books for young readers tackle the difficult topic of dying.
When a society doesn’t want to talk about something openly, it develops euphemisms. This is the case in the case of dying and death. Then people give up and leave us. The fact that everyone has to die at some point is hidden behind pretty empty phrases. The verb “scratch off”, on the other hand, is not a euphemism and the fact that it still appears in “Radishes from Below” shows that this children’s non-fiction book is something special. The visual level is explicit: it starts with a dancing skeleton ballet; on the back of the book you can see the Grim Reaper, mowing down life. The author Katharina von der Gathen and the illustrator Anke Kuhl use descriptions like this to open the door to their topic. From start to finish, a special tone is struck here: blunt, fearless and thoroughly alive.