Christian Morgenstern was born in Munich in 1871. He studied Economics and Law. At the age of twenty, he fell ill with tuberculosis, an illness that led him to frequent stays in several hospital and clinics, until he died in 1914.
In 1894 he established himself in Berlin, from where he realized several trips throughout Europe, especially to Italy, Switzerland and Scandinavian countries. He worked as a reader, a journalist, a writer and a translator and he is currently considered a classic of German non-sense literature. His humorous poetry creates strange worlds of fantasy. His formal elegance and his funny technique of rhymes, his brilliant plays on words and his eccentric ideas make him an undying artist.
“Every day drama” with a victim and a crime scene: poor Juan Abad is attacked by a treacherous cold. Norman Junge has made brilliant pictures about Christian Morgenstern’s short satiric poem, resulting in a wonderful work, as outlandish, funny and absurd as the one by the great German master of extravagant poetry.
“… an outlandish, absurd and funny picture book which warns you about the fact that you can get a cold at anytime… Junge has built impressive pictures over the poem (by Christian Morgenstern), which is as minimalist as tender and hare-brained. Architecture and space have a prevalent place in the pictures: a too huge scenario for such treacherous and small snot. The idea of making even buildings sneeze is also brilliant. A wonderful picture book, a funny look at cold that pre-readers can understand by “reading” the pictures, and that can be enjoyed by others together with the poem inspiring the pictures.” (CLIJ, Children and Young Adult’s Literarture Notebooks).