Friends in Germany

by Vicki H. Budge

Children in Germany are busy during the year going to school, helping their parents, and playing favorite games.

When young children go to school for the first time, their parents give them a paper horn with candy in it. The candy is shared with the other children to help make the first day at school a happy one.

Germany is a crowded country, so children are taught to be clean, orderly, and polite. They learn to help keep their homes clean and to prepare food for meals, and sometimes they help provide family incomes.

German children love sports and like to participate themselves. Soccer, which the Germans call football, is the most popular sport. Children also like to sleigh ride, toboggan, ice-skate, and ski in the hills of the Black Forest, the Alps, the Taunus Mountains, and the Harz Mountains. They like to take bicycle trips in the mountains, forests, and fields. Those in the larger cities take trolley cars or buses to the countryside for walking trips.

Festivals in Germany are a time of singing, dancing, and laughter. In spring there are carnivals, maypole dances, and colorful flower fairs, and in fall there are harvest festivals.

Many of the world’s famous people have been German. Famous German composers of music were Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, and Wagner. Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press.

Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm (the “Brothers Grimm”) traveled around Germany collecting and recording many old folk and fairy tales. Some of these tales are still popular today. Among them are “Hansel and Gretel,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Snow White,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Cinderella,” and “Puss in Boots.”