Ihr Kinderlein kommet (you children cometh)
If you grew up in Germany there is a high chance some of these books accompanied you in your childhood.
This is a list of typical German children's books.
Suggestions welcome!
created by ribbits
last updated August, 2026
Comments
oh this is great!! German is my second language and ive been looking for books to brush up on my skills
ribbitsOP
Oh, hopefully some of these books are right up your alley then! ^^
Momo! Haven't thought about this one in a long time!! Recs: How about Das doppelte Lottchen or Emil und die Detektive?
Ah, and my favorite: Ronja Räubertochter
ribbitsOP
I'm planning to re-read both Momo and The Neverending Story later this year ^^
And I'm definitely adding Erich Kästner!
I’m so coming back to this list after browsing through my shelves 🙂↕️ and I’m already seconding Erich Kästners mentionings
ribbitsOP
I'm looking forward to that! And yes, Erich Kästner is missing from this list and I'll be changing this right now!
Now I want to reread all of these 🥹
may I also suggest Eine Woche voller Samstage or really anything by Paul Maar? Those books were my entire personality for a few years, I had posters and games and dressed up as the Sams for Fasching and was generally obsessed. also the collection JAguar und NEINguar is what got me into poetry when I was a child and I still think some of the worldplay in there is absolutely genius even as an adult lol
also possibly Hier kommt Lola! by Isabel Abedi? I would not be the reader I am today without that series 🩷
ribbitsOP
I'll add all your recs! And you reminded me of the existence of Hier kommt Lola! I love how this became a space to remind each other of the books in our childhood and reminisce!
oh this is so cute!!
ribbitsOP
thank you! ^^ this idea came to me while reading Urmel to my youngest sibling as bedtime story today
aww that's so sweet!! what's that one about?
ribbitsOP
Please buckle in, it's a little wild ride and my knowledge mostly stems from the animated movie and is very muddy - no guarantee for accuracy of the content of the story xD Important context: The Urmel are an extinct fictional dinosaur species that can swim, fly and walk. And in Urmel aus dem Eis a professor living on an island where he teaches animals how to speak (every animal has a different kind of difficulty with speaking, instead of "Muschel" the penguin keeps saying "Mupfel", the bird says "äch" and not "ich" and more stuff like this). I think the professor is in exile, not sure about that. Anyway, one day they discover an iceberg in which there is a frozen egg at the beach, and out of that egg comes Urmel. The king of that kingdom hears about the Urmel and wants to hunt it so that he can add the Urmel to his hunting trophy collection. That's like kind of the premise.
wait that's so whimsical i love it. maybe i should try to learn a bit of german through these story books ..
I'm not from germany, but I remember my mother givining me her copy of "Momo" to read it! I had completly forget anout this 😭
ribbitsOP
When I was in elementary school we had someone who was studying to become an elementary school teacher visit us for a day a week for some time and she introduced us to Momo by giving a short presentation about her favourite book. I don't really remember much of it, so I'm looking forward to re-reading it soon!
🥹 Momo!! 😭😭 I loved that one, even though it was a bit too creepy for me at times 😣 have you read it yet?
I was really small when I read it and I don't remember anything of it. Just that I wasn't too happy to read it because I didn't liked how my mother insisted that I would read it😅😭 i'll probably going to reread it
it's not really a classic but I really enjoyed Vamperl as my first school reading. Maybe it would be interesting to add it here too (somehow the rating on here is abyssmal but I promise it's good and quite sweet)
oh my gooood this unlocked something deep in my brain 🧠
Such a sweet list! Some of these really take me back. I also wanted to suggest works of Otfried Preußler like der kleine Wassermann , die kleine Hexe or Räuber Hotzenplotz
ribbitsOP
thank you! and thank you for the suggestions because i thought of adding these books and immediately forgot them and couldn't for the life of me remember that i wanted to add them xD
what a cute list! i don’t how many people know it since it’s very old but my grandmother always read “Ein Teufel namens Fidibus” to me and my sister 🖤
ribbitsOP
I'm adding it!
Love this list and it's ability to remind me of books I read as a child, cause I really can't remember much at all. I now got reminded of reading Die Olchis, Komissar Kugelblitz and Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss, so lovely!
ribbitsOP
my signed copy of a Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss book is one of my most cherished books xD
