Stories About Getting Up Again

A children’s playground. Rabea is arguing with her friend Anna. She always has to play the horse in their games, while Anna gets to have all kinds of exciting adventures. Ben, who’s still in kindergarten, gets picked up by his grandparents. He’s meant to be going with them to visit his beloved great-grandad in the nearby care home. But Ben just can’t face it: that place, full of old people and weird smells, makes him uneasy. Danny, Rabea’s twin brother, is amazed when he goes round to play at his new friend Frederik’s: Frederik has a volcano that puffs out real steam, and he even has a bedroom all to himself! In Danny’s family, money is tight and his two dads are always saying they can’t afford things.

Like a hidden object scene, Thomas Freyer shines a spotlight on children (and adults) from all walks of life, all dealing with their own problems – some big, some small. How exactly do you draw a line under an argument, or make up your mind to do something you know you ought to do, or bring up a difficult subject, or tell someone what you need without hurting them? The playground becomes a microcosm – and the antithesis of our much-invoked ‹divided society›, which is depicted here as having much more solidarity than is commonly assumed, and where people help others get up again when they have fallen down.