Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel

Nesthäkchen #9

by Else Ury

Annemarie freut sich auf den Besuch ihrer brasilianischen Enkelinnen Anita und Marietta. Doch schon bald muss sie feststellen, dass der Umgang mit den im Luxus aufgewachsenen Mädchen eine unerwartete Herausforderung ist.

Genres: Childrens, Young Adult, Classics, Fiction, German Literature

107 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Else Ury (November 1, 1877 in Berlin; January 13, 1943 in the Auschwitz concentration camp) was a German writer and children's book author. Her best-known character is the blonde doctor's daughter Annemarie Braun, whose life from childhood to old age is told in the ten volumes of the highly successful Nesthäkchen series.
During Ury's lifetime Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg (Nesthäkchen and the World War), the fourth volume, was the most popular. Else Ury was a member of the German Bürgertum (middle class). She was pulled between patriotic German citizenship and Jewish cultural heritage. This situation is reflected in her writings, although the Nesthäkchen books make no references to Judaism.
As a Jew during the Holocaust, Ury was barred from publishing, stripped of her possessions, deported to Auschwitz and gassed the day after she arrived. A cenotaph in Berlin's Weissensee Jewish Cemetery (Jüdischer Friedhof Weißensee) memorializes her.

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now with novels seven to ten in Else Ury’s Nesthäkchen series, I have definitely found that the further along time wise the story of Annemarie Braun and her family proceeds, the more uncomfortable and disjointed my reading experience has tended to become. Yes, I do of course understand and realise that Ury seems to be permanently stuck in the 1920s with regard to cultural mores and technological advances even though time passes and Nesthäkchen et al all age. But even being aware of this prior to commencing with novel nine, before beginning with Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel, it really has been rather too much of a stretch to be able to imagine that Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel supposedly takes place in the 1960s when almost everything (from attitudes to even technological advances) is truly always firmly anchored about forty years previously, in the quasi distant past. For there is absolutely no 1960s feeling present at all, and in my opinion, even an imagined future should in Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel at least feel somewhat like an imagined future so to speak, but to and for me, this has not really happened, and the stagnation of time really becomes prevalent and obvious and just does not make for a very engaging reading experience, not yet enough to to distract me right out of Else Ury’s story, but I am definitely sufficiently annoyed to find Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel not all that personally relatable on an emotional level (and very much feeling like nothing really all that relevant has changed since the end of WWI).

Combined with the fact that in Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel I also have found the ethnic stereotypes (especially regarding Brazil and the so-called tropics), while probably somewhat of its time and seeing that Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel was penned in 1924 much much too overwhelming and horribly exaggerated, so while I have certainly found my perusal of Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel of academic interest, I equally cannot say that I have found Ury’s narrative all that personally enjoyable, and yes, in light of this, I also do think that my two star rating for Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel is actually I being pretty generous as well. And finally, furthermore, Anita’s character in particular, even when taking into account when Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel was published, she is in my humble opinion just too negative and too one-sided even for a stereotypical depiction (and really as such also not at all that on par with how Else Ury usually tends to create her characters, who even when and if they are antagonists and with mostly negative traits usually do also display nuances and are not like Anita has been portrayed in Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkelas almost entirely annoying, infuriating and with no willingness to even somewhat consider changing, trying different attitudes, and well, why does the darker skimmed Anita have to be entirely negative in Nesthäkchen und ihre Enkel while her much lighter skinned fraternal twin sister Marietta is seemingly automatically being portrayed and described by Ury as pretty much entirely positive).

[Josiemaus85 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hach, ja. War wieder recht niedlich.

[Juana Viviane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hab so geflennt am Ende 😭😭
ABER es ist so nervig, dass jedes Kind nach den gleichen Personen benannt wird, gibt inzwischen gefühlt 5x Hans und ich verliere langsam den Überblick, wer wer ist.

[Liasanya Leseratte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Den neunten Teil der Reihe fand ich wieder etwas gelungener als die vorausgegangenen Erwachsenen-Bände. Annemarie bekommt Besuch von ihren brasilianischen Enkeln und stellt fest, dass es gar nicht so einfach ist, mit deren Temperament zurecht zu kommen. Dies ist auch ein typisches Element von mädchenromanen: die verschrobenen Sitten von Menschen anderer länder, aber ich finde es hier gelungen umgesetzt. Außerdem ist es ganz lustig, das sich gewisse Dinge in jeder Generation zu wiederholen scheinen…