Greta Thunberg: “scenes from the heart”

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A book of Greta Thunberg, of the “Fridays for Future”activist? The leaves sit up and take notice. It is not, however, is largely out of your spring. It tells the story of climate activist before she became famous.

In Sweden scenes from the heart was released in August 2018 – at a time when Greta Thunberg had only just begun with your strikes for the world’s climate. And the book was also not written by Greta Thunberg, but mainly from her mother Malena Ernman – even if Greta’s Name is mentioned on the book cover of the German issue, first of all, because this is likely to sell better. In addition, the names of her parents and her sister Beata as co-authors.

“Scenes from the heart” tells the story of how Greta was, what it is – what should be of interest given your current fame, many people. In the Swedish Original “Scener ur hjärtat” was not, however, see Greta on the Cover, but her mother. Malena Ernman is an Opera singer who represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. At the time, she was the celebrity in the family.

Malena Ernman on the book cover of the Swedish original edition (August 2018)

Abyss on the edge of happiness

Since Greta has started with a school strike, have “changed a lot of things,” writes Malena Ernman in the Preface to the German edition. “Both for Greta and for our family. On some days, it appears almost as if in a dream.” And she adds that she will tell them in the next book. So there will be a sequel.

First of all, but it’s in this book to Malena Ernman herself, to her life with her husband, the actor Svante Thunberg and their two daughters, Greta and Beata. It tells of the years in which the couple with the children as a family of artists through Europe and toured, from the happiness of being a parent and of the crisis that broke in to eat as Greta in the fifth grade, suddenly stopped, and always more abmagerte.

Malena Ernman describes scenes and Fears, which are likely to go to a lot of parents to the heart. It gives an insight into the life of a family, when suddenly nothing is going the way it is supposed to.

Deficit or strength?

When Greta finally diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome; in the case of her younger sister, Beata, gets regular tantrums, ADHD. Eventually, the Situation stabilised in the family, but a new topic is on: climate change. Greta has learned about it in school and is deeply shaken. She manages to raise the awareness of first her family and later, people around the world for climate protection. Greta finds its Mission and is a role model for many young people.

More famous than her mother: Greta Thunberg on the book cover of the German edition in 2019

Your perseverance Greta has Asperger’s syndrome. “If I didn’t have Asperger’s, it would not have been possible,” she said in February in an Interview with the Second German television. “I would have simply lived and thought, like everyone else. I see the world from a different perspective – black and white.” This was not necessarily radical, but definitely more realistic.

This leads her mother in the book to the conclusion that Asperger’s and ADHD “not a Handicap”, but sometimes a “super power”. In the formulations, one may encounter, and what conclusions Malena Ernman draws at some Points in the book. But the girl’s clear voice is a strength, no doubt about it.