German: Reading Books

The current unit of the German II and German III class is all about reading books. Since the students are not quite at the level of German required to read the classics, the class is instead discovering a classic German children’s book by the famous author “Janosch”. In it, a bear and a tiger live happily and simply in a house by the river, until one day, the bear discovers a crate floating in the river. As the crate is labeled “Panama” and smells wonderfully of bananas, the bear and the tiger set off on a journey to this mysterious land. Though I won’t give away the ending of this simple yet deep story of friendship and home, we have already learned two important lessons. The first: “Wenn man einen Freund hat, braucht man sich vor nichts zu fürchten” (when you have a friend, you have nothing to fear). The second: when you don’t know the way, it is a bad idea to build and put up your own signpost for directions.