Gabriel Hoffmann’s teacher played a major role in the writing career that really got rolling with the corona lockdown, which brought the nine-year-old three literary prizes and an engagement as a member of a children’s jury within a few months. The local history teacher in the elementary school in Solln treated the poem by James Krüss with the title “My Life ABC” in class last autumn. The first lines read: “On the island of Helgoland / With a lot of water, wind and sand / Centimeter short (not a hero) / I penetrated into the light of the world …” The students were given the task of writing their own life ABC. Gabriel did that too, but it wasn’t enough for him. Because he has been a fan of what goes on outside of planet earth for as long as he can remember, he wrote an “ABC of Space”.
Its first lines cast a spell over you: “Andromeda galaxy on the edge of the Milky Way – / trillion stars sparkle there / Centauri Proxima, A and B – / they form their own ABC / dark matter is invisible, / but it is there / earth is a blue planet / in our solar system… ” It has many more lines, each beginning with the next letter of the alphabet, up to the Z. “I wrote it in one day,” says Gabriel at the meeting on the market square in Grünwald – and still quite old-fashioned by hand, not at the computer. At first he wrote this downright philosophical poem just for himself. But then the family found out about “Theo”. That is the name of the Berlin-Brandenburg Prize for Young Literature, and the call for entries for 2021 was: “On the other side.”
The poem from outer space fitted perfectly, of course, and Gabriel sent it in. “Theo” has existed since 2008, the competition is advertised by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels Berlin-Brandenburg and the Wortbau association. It is aimed at children and young people. 700 entries were received in 2021, 30 children won an online literature week, 14 children were selected as winners, including Gabriel. Only one of the winners is younger than him, namely eight years old. Another is nine years like Gabriel, all others are between eleven and 18 years. Her works landed in the anthology “On the other side” and all of them will be honored as prize winners on September 5th in the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin.
But that will be Gabriel’s second award ceremony. Because he has already won first place in a writing competition, namely in the competition “Beethoven Mystery XXL” announced by the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation, which was announced in the year of Beethoven’s 200th birthday in 2020. Here, too, Gabriel’s teacher played a not insignificant role, because the students learned about this project in class. One task was then to come up with a story and submit it. The first sentences were given. Here, too, Gabriel was successful, his story was set to music. The award ceremony took place online in November 2020 during the lockdown.
But it was this first success that motivated Gabriel to continue writing. His parents helped by researching literary prizes for children, and so they found “Theo”, among other things, but also a competition run by the children’s book publisher Lama. And again Gabriel was one of the winners, his story “The Secret of the Magical Hour” ended up in the publisher’s detective story book. And Gabriel’s success story is still not told to the end. In the meantime he is also a member of a jury, as one of five children who judge scripts on the Kika children’s channel. For this he has another travel date in autumn, namely to Erfurt to the transmitter. The first jury meeting will take place there, including a tour of the studio.
By the way, Gabriel reveals that all of this has something to do with the lockdown. Because none of the other activities were possible, he had time to concentrate on writing. And it was worth it. Of course, there is now also the question of the future and career aspirations. “I’m a very curious boy. I don’t know what I want to be, but I will definitely keep writing.” First of all, in September he will be in the fifth grade of the Grünwalder Gymnasium. Space will continue to play a huge role in his life. For example, he regularly follows the live reports from NASA on an app. Gabriel does not want to rule out the possibility that he himself will travel into space. In the fantasy, however, he will definitely be there more often.
The award ceremony of the Theo competition will take place on Sunday, September 5th, in the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin. The ceremony with invited guests begins at 3 p.m. and is broadcast via live stream and can be accessed on www.theo-schreibwettbewerb.de can be retrieved. The awardees present their texts and are each honored with a laudation by the jury.