Weißt du eigentlich, wie lieb ich dich hab? shares a message that every child will love to hear.
This is the German translation of “Guess How Much I Love You,” written by Sam McBratney with illustrations by Anita Jeram.
In this adorable story, a father rabbit is getting ready to put his child to bed. The child (known in the story as der kleine Hase) initiates a guessing game in which the father must guess how much the child loves him. Each time der kleine Hase proclaims how much he loves his father, the father (der große Hase) pronounces his love as well. The father, in proclaiming his love, always seems to love the child more than the child loves him.
In the end, the child goes to sleep after having made his final proclamation of love bis zum Mond (to the moon).
After the child is asleep, the father whispers, “Bis zum Mond und zurück haben wir uns lieb” (we love each other to the moon and back). This is sweet, because the child contentedly goes to sleep believing that he won the guessing game. Only after the child has drifted to sleep does the father make his final proclamation.
Before I had children, I may have perceived this guessing game, in which the father always one-ups the child, to be unnecessarily competitive.
I would have wondered why the father always had to out-do the child. Now that I have a child of my own, I completely understand this. No matter how much my adoring toddler loves me, as a parent, I will love him more. Perhaps this is the nature of parent-child love.
My son, who is 19 months old, absolutely loves this book.
Each time we read this story together, he wants to hear it at least three times. He loves the sweet illustrations. While he is too young to initiate a guessing game of his own, I know many toddlers who have been inspired to do just that based on this story.
This is an ideal book for babies, toddlers, and young children.
However, no one is too old to appreciate this story of boundless and unconditional love.
Age Recommendation: Birth – age 8
Fluency Recommendation: beginner/intermediate
Submitted by: Melissa M.
Weißt du eigentlich, wie lieb ich dich hab? Find it at Alphabet Garten!
My experience of this book is very different. My boy is 2 now, and doesn’t ‘get’ this book at all. We got this as a present for his birth and have used and tried this book intermittently since. Ben loves books, constantly ‘reads’, demands to be read to, browses books, is drawn to book displays… you get my drift.
This book – not interested. He doesn’t really understand some of the concepts yet, the illustrations, whilst very sweet, I thought did not provide much talking point. Ben got very tired of saying “Hase” “Look another Hase” “Look daddy Hase”…
In addition I also felt that the German translation of some of the key phrases used throughout, although grammatically correct, is not a wording that I would ever use in spoken German. For me the ‘translation’ came through strongly.
Every child is different, and maybe at this point Ben is still to young. I shall keep trying