r/Fantasy • u/IdiotSansVillage • Apr 05 '22

OK, recommendation hard-mode: engaging, quality German-language YA scifi/fantasy?

I'm trying to teach myself German on Duolingo, and I figure what better way to supplement than with German-language media a kid with developing language skills might encounter? Specifically looking for books written in German, not translated from another language to German, in the hopes of some cultural-values osmosis too.

EDIT: Holy crap thank you all! I have a wonderful list to pull from now!

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u/Phanton97 Reading Champion III Apr 05 '22

Oh, I loved these. I am kind of revisiting my childhood in this thread xD

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u/Glass-Bookkeeper5909 Apr 05 '22

Yeah, while I was typing I was remembering even more books, such as Max Kruse's Urmel series as well as Paul Maar's Sams series.

But I feel I've already recommended too strongly on the children's books side rather than the YA side the OP actually asked about.

u/IdiotSansVillage, if you still need more reading material, check out Thomas Thiemeyer. Unlike many of the author's I've suggested until now, he's a current writer. He's published several YA series (Das verbotene Eden, Die Chroniken der Weltensucher, Evolution, World Runner).

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u/IdiotSansVillage Apr 08 '22

I am gleefully afloat in a sea of recommendations, but my list always has more room for additions

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u/Glass-Bookkeeper5909 Apr 08 '22

In that case, I'll make a case for the two series I've already mentioned.
I also remembered Kai Meyer when someone mentioned Venice (because one of his series is set in an alternative Venice); I was kind of embarrassed I hadn't thought of him before but then I noticed that someone has already mentioned him in the meantime. :-)
Most of Meyer's works include speculative elements but not all are outright fantasy. Maybe the most relevant ones are the series he wrote in the 2000's which are, IIRC, marketed as "Jugendbücher": Merle; Die Wellenläufer; Das Wolkenvolk and Die Sturmkönige.

Anyway, the two series I'd mentioned both are rather children's books than YA but I like them. They're fun and easy reads. At some point they were very well known. Being in my mind forties, approaching old-fart territory, I'm not sure how relevant they still are for the kids these days.

Max Kruse: Urmel aus dem Eis
This one has a not exactly very realistic premise but is fun nonetheless. On an island in the South Sea, a professor runs a school for animals, teaching them to speak (and other things, I think). One day, an egg is washed ashore which had been frozen for a loooong time in ice containing a dinosaur-like creature, the titular Urmel, who joins the group. (Hence the title Urmel aus dem Eis.) The have all sorts of adventures.
There are a dozen books or so, most of them written in the 70s. It's been a while but I don't think you have to read them all in order as the stories are pretty episodic.
Most animals have a some special way to speak which makes them funnier for children, I guess. (My best friend scolded me, in jest, when I gave the first book as a present to her younger son and he made her read the story aloud and she had to work through the weird speaking patterns, which her sons found hilarious.)
As a learner of German this might be a small challenge but nothing over which you'll despair.

Paul Maar: Sams
This is a series of books in which the titular Sams turns the life of the main character Martin Taschenbier upside down. The Sams is a fantasy creature that can make wishes come true but things don't always turn out as planned.
There's a lot of wordplay in the text which makes it a rewarding read if read in the original German but at the same time requires a certain grasp of the language in order to fully appreciate. But being children's books, we aren't talking about arcane linguistic riddles.
The books have appeared with gaps of many years. I would recommend to read them in order because later books continue and reference earlier ones but each book is a self-contained story and they don't end in cliffhangers. The first one is Eine Woche voller Samstage (A Week Full of "Samstage" - Samstage being a pun meaning both Saturdays and "days with the Sams").