Author Alice Pantermüller inspires Bocholt schoolchildren

Bestselling author Alice Pantermüller now presented her latest children's books from the series "My Lotta Life" and "The Extraordinary Cases of Florentine Blix" as part of a reading tour at Bocholt City Library.

The well-known children's book author Alice Pantermüller presented her latest children's books to more than 250 pupils at the Bocholt Public Library. Together with the team of the children's and youth library from Bocholt, it was possible to plan a joint reading tour of the author to Münsterland. "We are very happy that we were able to win the libraries from Wesel, Rhede and Borken as cooperation partners," says Claudia Alders from the team of the children's and young people's library, "through this networking, the reading tour could be realised and over 500 children can experience Alice Pantermüller at various live readings."

Becoming achildren's book star with "My Lotta Life

At the end of 2009, Alice Pantermüller took part in a writing competition organised by Arena Verlag and won first prize with her manuscript "Die Insel der Dinosaurier". Under the title "Bendix Brodersen - Angsthasen erleben keine Abenteuer" (Bendix Brodersen - Scared Rabbits Don't Have Adventures), the author's current favourite book was published for the first time by Arena Verlag in January 2011.

Since then, Alice Pantermüller has become known primarily for her series "Mein Lotta-Leben" (My Lotta Life), in which ten-year-old Lotta reports on her life as a "totally untalented recorder player" at a comprehensive school with "two stupid brothers" in humorous diaries richly illustrated by illustrator Daniela Kohl. In May 2023, the 20th volume in the "Lotta Life" series will be published, and the books have been translated into 30 languages. Two titles in the series have already been successfully filmed: "Alles Bingo mit Flamingo!" and "Alles Tschaka mit Alpaka!" delighted thousands of children in the cinema and on TV at home.

Author to "touch" took children into the realm of literature

On Wednesday, the author had two school readings on the programme at the Bocholt public library. In the morning, she presented the current book of the Lotta series "Alles Tschaka mit Alpaka!" to the fourth grade classes of the Kreuzschule Mussum and the fifth grade classes of the Mariengymnasium.

Here, Lotta experiences an exciting time on the island of Amrum with her classmates during a school trip and has to face many secrets. Luckily, there are two alpacas on the island, or are they rather llamas?

In the afternoon, the fifth classes of the comprehensive school and the local book club were guests at the second author reading. Here the children experienced the heroine of Alice Pantermüller's latest book series "The Extraordinary Cases of Florentine Blix" with her latest case "Secret File Message in a Bottle".

In this adventure, the extraordinary sleuth Florentine has to solve a case involving a message in a bottle that has washed up on the shore and even accepts to take part in a sailing club. After all, she has to get to the treasure island on the map somehow...

Awakening the children's enthusiasm for reading

Afterwards, Alice Pantermüller was available for questions and conversations, and of course some autographs on cards or in books she had brought with her were not to be missed.

"It is so unbelievably great that I was able to meet my favourite author here in the town library and get autographs in my books. I'm totally fascinated that Ms Pantermüller has already written so many books and only needs about three weeks for a Lotta volume," enthuses comprehensive school pupil Nala Testroet (11 years). In a good mood, the author responded to the children's wishes and was thus able to get many of them excited about writing and reading.

She advised the children to start writing stories at a young age and to let their imagination run free. She herself had already written little stories in her notebooks in primary school and continued to develop her writing skills into adulthood. Alice Pantermüller admitted with a smile that she had been a rather mediocre pupil herself.

Today, she loves to travel across Iceland with her old Bully and gets many ideas for new stories here. It gives her great pleasure that her children's books are very popular with young and old and that she can thus make a valuable contribution to promoting reading among the pupils.

"During the children's author readings, we quite often experience how the magic spark jumps over here and the development from a reading slacker to a bookworm is greatly accelerated," says Melanie Tenhumberg, specialist head of the municipal library. "If we can encourage the children's love of reading and offer them a wide range of media, we have already achieved a lot and are looking forward to the next reading campaign.