Bunny siblings Hans and Grete are prepared for life in the “bunny school” of Albert Sixtus. There they learn what will be important to them later: how to dye Easter eggs and how to stay away from the evil fox because he is not in a good mind. The story belongs to the classic children's books and therefore it has been updated in her story by actress Anke Engelke (58).

“Bunny school”: The new version causes problems for farmers

In his new version, “The New Bunny School,” Engelke sheds the stereotypical image of the evil fox. Instead of enmity, the bunnies and the fox experience friendship – which sometimes works so well because the fox is vegan and also loves carrots.

But the story would be too one-sided if it didn't contain “conflict or danger,” Engelke said in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” newspaper. In the new version, agriculture poses a threat to animals. Farmers spray poison on the fields with their combine harvester and chop the animals into small pieces. This portrayal is met with great dissatisfaction among farmers: “I'm honestly amazed,” Torsten Krawczyk, president of the Saxony farmers, told the “Freie Presse” newspaper.

The president of the farmers of Saxony: “Such nonsense”

Depicting a profession is exactly the wrong way for children to learn more about nature and its products. “It's totally out of character. How are our children supposed to learn to care for nature later in life if they're fed this kind of crap?

The Bavarian Agricultural Weekly writes about the “disparagement of farmers”. With his new version, Engelke would contribute to the “defamation of an entire profession”.

In the interview, Engelke emphasized that his goal was not to take away from the children the idea that they want to become farmers one day. Rather, it was the publisher who wanted to portray agriculture as the enemy of animals. In the new edition, however, he should have been a badass: “I had to put up with it, for the sake of the story, turning people into goons.”

By Eva Gneisinger (eg)