Der Struwwelpeter: Classic Children's Book with Merry Stories & Funny Pictures - Perfect for Bedtime Reading and Family Storytime

This book is a masterpiece of children's literature, from an age when "cautionary tales" were used to instill good behaviour and moral values. And the more gruesome those tales, the better!I'm sure that, even back then, adults thought these stories were educational, but kids just thought they were funny.But there's a more serious side to this book.It was originally written in German by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann, an early 19th-Century Psychologist. Many of the poems in this book, and in its sequels, describe symptoms of what was then called "A Defect in Moral Character", then "Minimal Brain Dysfunction", and is today known as "ADHD".Hoffmann observed these behaviours in his patients, and recognized that there was a psychological reason for them. But, at the time, they were seen as "moral defects". So, he wrote these cautionary tales, warning against them.Unfortunately, ADHD is still largely regarded as a "moral failure". ADDers are still told they just need to "try harder"...by the very people who wouldn't dream of telling a very nearsighted person, "You don't need glasses. You just need to try harder to read the blackboard from the back of the room."So, yes, I laugh out loud at the poems in this book, because they are so ludicrously exaggerated and gruesome that it's hard to believe they were meant for little children.But I also feel a twinge, because I know the biology behind "Fidgety Philip" (hyperactivity), "Little Suck-a-Thumb" (addictions), "Augustus - Who Would Not Have Any Soup" (picky eating), "Harriet & the Matches" (impulsivity), and "Johnny Head-in-Air" (inattention).