What children achieve together: A children’s thriller with a good dose of social criticism about the power of helping one another

Erich Kästner’s first work as a children’s author is now almost 95 years old. “Emil and the Detectives” has lost none of its freshness and poignancy. What characterises the children’s book?

Emil Tischbein’s mother has worked long and hard for the 140 marks she gives her son for a holiday trip to Berlin so that he can buy his return ticket and support his grandmother there. Emil knows this and is all the more shocked when the money is stolen from him by a dodgy gentleman on the train journey. He bravely sets off on a chase across the new and, for him, unknown Berlin.

“The city was so big. And Emil was so small. And nobody wanted to know why he had no money and why he didn’t know where to get off. Four million people lived in Berlin and nobody was interested in Emil Tischbein. Nobody wanted to know about the worries of others. Everyone has enough to do with their own worries and joys. And when people say: I’m really sorry about that, they usually mean nothing more than: ‘Gosh, just leave me alone! What would happen?

Emil swallowed hard. And he felt very, very alone.”

But would Emil ever have stood a chance against the Berlin underground if wonderful other children hadn’t come into his life? While Emil is tailing the money thief in Wilmersdorf, he meets Gustav, a boy from the neighbourhood whom everyone knows. When Emil tells him about the theft, his mother and grandmother, he immediately realises: “Well, I think the thing with the thief is great. That’s great, I promise! And if you don’t mind, I’ll help you.”

What happens now is great cinema. More and more children from the neighbourhood come together when they hear about Emil’s fate: Some stand guard, others phone, others shadow. It’s clear to everyone: we can’t let the boy from the suburbs down!

“Emil and the Detectives” is a book about the worries of a self-sacrificing single mother, about the burden and pride when children take on responsibility at an early age, about the unprecedented, unbiased support that children give each other, regardless of whether they know each other or not. Kästner’s novel is a school about what children can achieve when they stick together, even against adults, even against a criminal organisation. It is a plea to take children seriously in their worries and hardships and, at best, to simply let them be what they are: Children.

Erich Kästner’s “Emil and the Detectives” is available in English (Amazon) and German (Amazon, Genialokal und Orell Füssli).