Which exam questions in this year’s Realschule or Hauptschule leaving examinations in Baden-Württemberg are based on the debut novel Nach vorn, nach Süden , Sarah Jäger cannot answer either at her reading at the Johannes-Brenz-Gemeinschaftsschule on 15 January 2024. And she knows the 2020 youth novel well – after all, she wrote it.
Instead, the author from North Rhine-Westphalia introduces her book to the soon-to-graduate pupils, reads out individual passages, explains scenes and projects theatre sequences from the Theater Heilbronn’s stage adaptation by Nicole Buhr and Sarah Speiser. For three quarters of an hour, the young people have the chance to once again put themselves in the shoes of the same-aged characters Can, Marie, Otto and Lena and travel south with them to find the missing Jo.
In a second part, the pupils ask questions, which allows them to expand their own knowledge of the book and get to know the author’s profession.
The reading was initiated by Kathleen Uttrodt, a teacher at the Johannes-Brenz-Gemeinschaftsschule. The costs were covered by the Cultural Office of the City of Schwäbisch Hall, the City Library, and proportionally by the Johannes-Brenz-Gemeinschaftsschule and the Schulzentrum Ost. The on-site organisation was taken over by Dorothea Lebrecht from the City Library.
When asked why she wrote the book, Sarah Jäger answered: „I didn’t want to convey anything profound. My main aim was that people enjoy reading and can savour the summer feeling of the story“.
She certainly lived up to this aim in the reading. Although the summer feeling didn’t quite want to set in with snow in front of the school building, there was definitely plenty of enjoyment in listening to her.
