Branch Covidian Advent Calendar, 11 Dec. 2023

Meet children's book author Andrea Paluch, wife of Germany's Economy Minister Habeck, who has the perfect Christmas gift…

…that is, if you wish to scare your child out of his or her mind. Her 2021 book bears the title ‘The Best End-of-the-Times: What will become of us? Twelve exciting visions of the future’ and can be obtained via the usual channels. Here’s the cover:

From the publisher’s announcement at Amazon (my translation):

The world as we know it will end.
And what will come next? We can help decide that.
This book outlines twelve scenarios for our future.
Some are depressing, others are exhilarating.

Will there be a great drought?
Will our cities one day be free of cars?
Or will we have to save ourselves on spaceships?
All these ideas open our imagination to the question:

How do we want to live?

The book is recommended for children 8 years and older, according to the publisher, Klett Kinderbuch, whose website, of course, boasts glowing blurbs by unknown people.

‘The Best End-of-the-Times’, By Andrea Paluch

Care to ‘learn’ more? Here’s the publisher’s website, replete with an excerpt from which the below passages were taken (my translation):

The air is getting thin

There is not enough oxygen in the air to breathe. That's why people can only stay in airtight buildings buildings and vehicles. You can't open the windows and there are air locks at every exit. Houses are connected by glass tubes. Plants are grown in large greenhouses that produce oxygen…

You can only get out with breathing apparatus, and that smells of plastic. Lena walks Bella on the promenade. Dogs can cope with the available air, there are no other pets. Grandma Christa sits on a bench in the sun with a connectable oxygen system. It's a shame that she spends most of her time indoors. The warmth and wind on her skin are so nice…

Nature outside the buildings has adapted and people no longer recognise the new animal and plant species. The inhabited areas therefore lie behind a wall for safety. People only leave urban areas for travelling…

The only people who move on foot outside the city gates of the city are the rubbish collectors. They take the rubbish to landfill sites in the surrounding areas. They earn a lot of money because their job is dangerous. As a precaution they are armed... [one] would send help immediately, if the oxygen fails or a wild animal attacks.

The back of the book looks like this:

Wonderful, scary, and inspirational—
an illustrated book full of what visions, conversations, and dreams are made of.

For all those who love this planet.

What do Customers think About it?

Here’s a bunch of customer comments from Amazon’s German-language site:

And thus it continues; as of today, 58% of customers gave the book a 1-star rating (n = 49 ratings). And since it’s been brought up, here’s the ‘flood’ segment mentioned in the longer review (my translation):

After the great flood

People are living on the mountains, the land has retreated, the sea level has risen dramatically. The remaining land has been built up with tower blocks, so the towns are growing out onto the water. Those who can afford it live in floating houses. Vegetables are grown on artificial islands. Because there is hardly any soil, vegetables and potatoes are a delicacy. Mussels, crabs, crayfish and fish, on the other hand the children can no longer see. The algae salad in particular salad is hated, but it has to be, because of the vitamins.

Everyone has a boat. The children have kayaks, the parents parents usually have larger canoes. On the water one can escape the narrowness. When the children paddle off in the afternoon, Bella stays behind on the shore and barks after them. Sometimes she is allowed to join them—she loves sitting on the front of Louis' paddleboard. Louis goes to water polo, Sophie goes with her friend to the diving level 3 diving course with her friend and Lena goes high diving. You have to learn to swim as early as possible. If you don't have a swimming licence will not start school. Franziska and Christian paddle to one of the supermarket boats moored in the bay and do some shopping. Grandma Christa runs a small a small vegetable stall. She has grown her potatoes on grown on seaweed. They are renowned all over the neighbourhood famous.

Bottom Lines

WTF is this? Can I add anything that hasn’t been said so far?

Perhaps some background on the author, Andrea Paluch, wife of Robert Habeck (Greens). According to her Wikipedia bio, Ms. Paluch holds a Ph.D. in Literature (dissertation title: ‘Auto-Referentiality in Contemporary British Literature’), is a mother of four, lives in Berlin and Flensburg, and works as ‘journalist, lecturer, consultant, writer, and translator’.

The book discussed above speaks to children’s dreams (nightmares) revolving about killer viruses, suffocation, dying of thirst, and nuclear disasters. Although the book has a very poor rating among its readership, I am left wondering how well the children of Robert Habeck and Andrea Paluch are doing.