Successful author
Marc-Uwe Kling dedicates new book to smartasses
Marc-Uwe Kling, now in his early 40s, recently published several children’s books. photo
© Annette Riedl/dpa
Kling became famous with a talking kangaroo. In his new book he explains what qualifies you as a smartass. Spoiler: Correcting a dative to the genitive every now and then is not enough.
It’s a little chubby, a little shaggy, not much bigger than one Guinea pig, has pants with suspenders and glasses on his knobby nose. At first glance, its color could be described as blue. But then you’re quickly proven wrong: “I’m turquoise,” says the strange creature, who introduces himself as a “smart-ass.”
In a sense, it is the protagonist in Marc-Uwe Kling’s new children’s book, lovingly illustrated by Astrid Henn. The duo has worked together on several projects. Readers should recognize Henn’s style from “NEINhorn”, for example.
In the new book “Das Klugscheißerchen” the story revolves around the Theufel family. Especially about the children Tina and Theo. They are ten and eight years old, or more precisely ten years, seven months and four days and eight years, five months and twenty-one days. And neither of them are in the mood for the beetroot that their parents serve them.
Homework done? – “Yes, of course. Yesterday for example”
This makes it clear that they take things very seriously in the Theufel family (with TH!). When the mother asked whether the two of them had done their homework, they answered “Yes, of course.” “Yesterday, for example,” says Theo. “Or last week,” says Tina.
When the two of them play pirates in the attic of their new home shortly after moving, they discover the smart-ass in the book boxes – and are initially very frightened. It tells of his life’s work: “Being a real smartass is hard work! You have to know, you have to be on your toes, you have to be relentlessly committed to correctness.”
And it tells the children that only real smart-asses can see the smart-ass. Parents are rather exempt: “Adults are rarely really smart people. They think it’s enough to correct a dative to the genitive here and there or to add a how to an as.” As you read it out, some people will probably feel caught and smile.
Career start on reading stages and at poetry slams
In any case, this turns into a kind of bet with the parents: If Dad can also see the smart-ass, the children will get a dog as a pet. If he doesn’t see it, Tina and Theo have to clean the kitchen and bathroom for a month. And the father seems to want to trick his children.
Marc-Uwe Kling, who lives in Berlin, started his career on reading stages and at poetry slams. He became known to a wider audience with the podcast “News from the Kangaroo” on the radio station Fritz and, above all, the stories about the talking marsupial in printed form and as an audio book (“The Kangaroo Chronicles”).
Now in his early 40s, he recently published several children’s books. Carlsen Verlag describes Kling as a letter mixer – and explains: “A letter mixer deals a lot with letters, words and the perfect order of them.” In keeping with this, Henn is of course a “color mixer”. Your pictures are perfectly matched to his texts and make reading and reading aloud a joy.
“Take” doesn’t always mean “grab”
The publisher is advertising the new work as a “read-aloud book for all know-it-alls and smart-ass people, regardless of age.” And they can sometimes stumble upon beautiful sentences like “The stairs to the first floor, for example, creaked with every step, as if they were trying to tell a horror story.” Sometimes the author draws your attention to linguistic curiosities in passing – for example, that “take” does not always mean “grab” when it comes to buses, for example.
Information about the book