Picture book “The Garden of Abdul Gasazi”: In the forbidden garden – culture

A forty-year-old picture book by the US artist who once created the template for “Jumanji” has now been published in German. What do today’s five-year-olds think of it?

When it comes to picture books, the question often arises as to who should like them. only the children? Or also the adults? After all, the older viewers often spend just as much time with the picture books as the young ones and, at least sometimes, not entirely voluntarily. Finding an intersection is often not that easy, especially since viewing habits change a little with each generation. What adults may like about older children’s books for sentimental reasons, for example, is often rejected or at least bored by the offspring.

A good example of this is “The Garden of Abdul Gasazi” by Chris van Allsburg. When the picture book by the American illustrator and children’s book author came out in the early 1980s, she wrote New York Times “This is without question one of the best – and most original – picture books of recent years.” Why? That’s what the five-year-old child next to you asks himself. The story behind the black-and-white drawings, which Berlin-based Kraus Verlag has now published as a German first edition, is extremely simple. Little boy Alan Mitz is asked by Mrs. Hester to look after her naughty dog ​​Fritz for a day. That works quite well – until the afternoon walk, when Fritz tears himself away and of course tears himself into the very garden, at the entrance of which there is a sign that says “VERY STRICT DOG BAN!”.

It is the garden of Abdul Gasazi, a “retired magician” and what exactly happens in this enchanted garden remains in the shady approximation. Hedges here take the form of animals, the magician’s house looks like a gloomy castle, and the magician himself is obviously having fun teasing the little boy about what happened to Fritz.

Open detailed view

This is probably the point at which the adult reader will find joy in this book, which makes no effort to be pedagogical. Just as little as it spells out scenes – the mental cinema in the head can sometimes take over something. This is matched by the almost surreal images, in strong black-and-white contrast and an almost uncanny depth. But that doesn’t mean that Chris van Allsburg, whose picture books have already been filmed, especially “Jumanji”, is only targeting adults with this story. Maybe it’s more like this: As an older viewer, one enjoys how much humor and imagination lies between the lines and in the shades – and this then of course also carries over to the younger viewer next door.