All That Happens: Katharina Hacker’s Wonderful Children’s Book

Berlin – A reviewer can win and lose readers with the following sentence: “This is a book about the special relationship between a girl and a horse.” For girls on horseback riding vacations. In order to prevent those who find themselves shivering from this monotony, it must be said quickly: Katharina Hacker’s children’s novel “It Happens” does not follow the tried and tested pattern of horse friendship. Gray mare Belle, whom Iris meets at Martinstag in Berlin, feels the gentle calm around him. But Bell’s well-being is Iris’s smallest fear.

Katarina Hacker, best known for “Die habenichtse”, for which she won the 2006 German Book Prize, writes here for the first time for children from the age of twelve. She takes this audience as seriously as usual, for whom she gave her last meticulous articles “May I give you this?” And the novel “Skip”. Iris, who is linked here, lost her mother to a serious illness, even faster than feared. She was torn apart by the loss of her inner certainty in a way that her long-term relationship with her best friend Lisa was going to be difficult. The father loses the connection of understanding with his daughter in his need.