books & magazines

A book can open up a magical space for the child and give him the opportunity to immerse himself completely in his imagination and his own inner world of images. While in former times telling stories was a natural part of people's lives, girls and boys in our time, beyond television and other things, can read these stories and fairy tales in books or have them read to them. Reading children's books aloud, whether at home, in kindergarten or at school, can create a very special atmosphere. Colourful pictures can be created and the words of the book can come to life in the child. In doing so, the whole person is grasped and usually exactly those pictures are created which the child needs and can carry. In our often hectic time with all the impressions of the "new media" around us, this moment of reading can be a pause, a moment of exhalation and create a feeling of belonging together. In families, the reading aloud usually finds its place in the form of a bedtime story. In education, looking at a book together or reading aloud can have an incredible educational value: Reading books aloud expands the child's vocabulary, strengthens its empathy and activates the emotional centre in the brain. It also promotes the connection of new connections in the nerve cells. At school, children learn to read themselves and can now immerse themselves in the wonderful world of stories and books. The moment when you open a book for the first time, or the moment when you read the last sentences on the last page of the book and then close it, or the moment when, after many years, you pick up the familiar fairy tale book again, usually when you have a child sitting in front of you, listening with expectant eyes and open ears. In this respect a book can even become something like a good friend. Stories, fairy tales and fables occupy a special place in education, especially in Waldorf education, which is based on the anthroposophical view of humanity shaped by Rudolf Steiner. Whereas in Waldorf kindergarten for the very young children, apart from free storytelling, books rich in pictures with little text and a very open, liberating design are usually of great educational value, the educator with the older children can already immerse themselves in such wonderful children's book classics as Ottfried Preußler's "Das kleine Gespenst" or "Der kleine Wassermann" or of course in "Die Kinder von Bullerbü" by Astrid Lindgren. In the lower school of the Waldorf School an important part of the main lesson, based on the knowledge that Waldorf Education or Anthroposophy makes possible, is the imaginative, free telling of stories by the teacher, through which the pupils get to know fairy tales and the story of creation, for example. Rudolf Steiner has not explicitly said anything about the Grimm fairy tales, but in view of the image of man in Waldorf Education and the insights gained from it, the fairy tales, which were not originally intended as children's stories, are nevertheless of educational value for education and are therefore also the focus of the first year at a Waldorf school. In the Middle School the focus is on myths and legends and in the Upper School novels and biographies are the main focus. There is such an unmanageable mass of books (children's stories, orders and novels) on the market. In the Waldorfshop we offer some books and novels that we believe to be pedagogically valuable on the basis of Waldorf education. In the Waldorfshop you will find a large number of anthroposophical books, pedagogy books, children's book classics, books for young people, children's stories, picture books, novels and books for the first child-oriented scientific experiences for kindergarten, school and home. We also give you tips on which book is suitable for which seventh of the year. Books that are important for anthroposophy and which you can find in the Waldorf shop are, for example, "The consultation hour for children", "Education with serenity", the Anthroposophical soul calendar and "Education for freedom" about the pedagogy of Rudolf Steiner. Books such as "My woodcarving workshop", "Don't turn around...", "Season tables" and "Felting with children" are practical for education and therefore well suited for work in a Waldorf kindergarten or in the after-school care of a Waldorf school. Books that are suitable for lessons in the Waldorf School or for the Waldorf Kindergarten are for example the Quintensive Songs of the Year, "Parzival" or the book "With Children in the Bee Garden". Popular picture books for small children are for example the Jahreszeitenbücher by Eva-Maria Ott-Heidmann, "Ein Zwergentag", "Der kleine Haulemann" or the little book "Summ,Summ,Summ". Popular children's stories and the best children's books are for example "Simsala", the stories about Tomte Tummetott, "The Light in the Lantern", "Puck the Dwarf" and "Nils Holgersson". We also have exciting and moving books for young girls and boys, such as "In the Mirror of Darkness", "The Letter for the King" or "The Black Ship off Troy". You will also find diaries in the Waldorfshop, which are suitable for thoughts and memories, but also for writing your own little stories. Not everyone has to write their own novel, but these little children's stories, which sometimes arise in the minds of pupils or even younger children who are not yet at school, be it stories about magical animals, a little bear, journeys, exciting adventures or fairies, find a wonderful place in our diaries or even epoch books.