German Authors and Genres

The picture books of Helme Heine have fans young and old all over the world. In an interview with goethe.de, the storyteller and illustrator talks about the elemental force of stories and the power of pictures.

Mr. Heine, what is special for you about doing children’s books?

Children’s books are an art form that is nearer theater and film than to fiction. A picture book isn’t simply a book with pictures; it stages in the smallest possible form a story. That’s why the story is so important in a picture book. Many people overestimate the importance of the pictures. Even the most beautiful pictures are of no use when the story isn’t powerful and elemental.

Magic and teething

Why do animals play so big a role in your children’s books?

The symbolism of animals is very similar all over the world. The bee is industrious, the fox cunning and clever, the snake double-tongued, the frog a master of metamorphosis: he was once a polliwog. A creature that can manage that can also transform himself into a prince. Since most readers of picture books can’t read yet and I have only very little text in which to characterize my figures, I make use of this symbolism.

And there’s something else. In the age of magic, before teething, when children are between 0 and 6, they understand the language of animals. They believe that lions can fly, and that the teddy bear possesses a genuine soul. At this age human beings are closer to animals than they’ll ever be again. That’s another reason why animals figure so prominently in children’s books.

Childlike instead of childish

You once said that an author can write better for children the more distance he has from childhood. Why?

I’m rather older and have grandchildren. With the distance in time, you gain a better overview. I think that helps. What’s important is to take children seriously in your language and in your theme. Be childlike, but not childish. In old age, when the circle of life closes, you have more understanding for the way a child sees the world.

Many people think that if you write about and for children, you have to discover the child in yourself or have children of your own. That’s nonsense. You can breed chickens without yourself laying eggs.

You’ve lived for nearly twenty years in New Zealand, and before that for a long time in Africa. Do you need this distance from Germany?

Yes. But I also have to come back again and again so as to immerse myself in my native language. I love Germany more today than in the years I lived there. When I’m in Germany – that’s at least three months a year – I enjoy it. I suck up culture, visit friends and my children. But then I have to retreat, because the abundance of cultural offerings knocks me out. I don’t have the time there to digest what I’ve seen, heard, experienced. Without New Zealand and Africa, I’d never have become an artist.

“What would the pastor be without the devil?”

In summer 2009 the film Mollywoop came to movie theaters. It tells the story of how your probably most famous characters – Charlie Rooster, Johnny Mouse and Percy the pig – became friends. What was your part in the film?

I developed the story together with Gisela von Radowitz.

Why did the film need a new story?

A book has other laws than those that apply to a film, which should have at least two things: a chronological or personal development – for example, from dishwasher to millionaire, from coward to hero – and the presence of an adversary, a villain. What would the pastor be without the devil? What Little Red Riding Hood without the wolf?

Moving hearts

What do you particularly like about this film?

Its slowness, I think. Films today are becoming faster and faster. I discussed this with the film people. I said: Let’s try for once not to have all the action on the screen – for instance, car chases – but to keep events on the screen calm and move instead the viewer’s head and heart. I think we succeeded.

Is there something about it you don’t particularly like?

For a film you have to rework characters that were visually conceived for a book. The eyes, which are only dots in the book, have to have pupils and lids that open and shut. Static characters have to learn how to walk and speak. About 500 people work on such a film, all of whom want to play a part. Naturally I had to make concessions. I could have wished some things were done more lovingly, with more detail. But all in all I’m satisfied.

When pictures destroy imagination

In an interview you said: “I regret that we live in a world where everything is made into pictures”. Yet you do children’s books. How does that fit together?

Every book today that is successful gets filmed. And that imposes a uniformity on the imagination of readers throughout the world. I regret that, because we need imagination in order to cope with man’s future.

In a picture book I create my characters from the outset in text and image. A large part of my readers can’t read yet. Yet there are texts that I’d never illustrate, only embellish.

For example?

The book Ich lieb dich trotzdem immer [i.e., I’ll Still Always Love You]. It’s about a mother-daughter relationship. I don’t illustrate the mother, because we all have our own image of the mother in our heads. I never show her face, but only her hands, her clothes, her hobbies. That’s the art of illustration.