DISD Book Week 2023

Internet dangers, apps, and artificial intelligence (AI) were central themes of DISD Book Week, held March 20-24 at DISD. With filled hearts, our librarians look back on successful online and live readings, Book Dinners, and the popular Book Character Day. German media expert and educator Thomas Feibel was flown in. In readings followed by discussions on the books "Happy - der Hund im Handy," "like me.JederKlick zählt" and "Ich weiß alles über Dich" (I know everything about you), he informed student about cyber bullying, cyber crime and other dangers on the Internet. In the readings, he addressed the student students very personally, bluntly, and at the same time in a very calm manner as a friend and an understanding person.

With a lot of wit and humor, he animated the student*innen in his readings to think about the respective readings. Many scenes in his readings are taken from real life. The student*innen learned about the author's personal preferences: he likes horror stories, wears headphones while working and prefers to write in a chicken coop in Brandenburg.

The student*innen learned about his creative process, how he creates a psychological profile, a profile, a chapter outline, and then fleshes out the chapters. "For every new book, the first sentence is crucial, because I want to captivate the reader!" the author told student*inside.

After reading the book "like me. Every click counts," he addresses the question of guilt in the bullying case in the story with the student*innen. Some found the consequences in the reading too harsh. He agreed with the student*innen because he remembers his own school days very well and can therefore relate to the fact that young people at a certain age are not aware of many things and act naively.

In his books, Thomas Feibel always deliberately uses characters with different migration histories to reflect Germany's multicultural image. When asked by a senior high school student if he would also write an Arabic story, he clearly answered with: "Yes, if I could live in an Arab country for a certain time to get a real picture."

In the Q&A session with the third-graders, it turned out that Thomas Feibel loves pasta, would love to bathe in hummus, and has eaten pasta with kircher peas before. "Do you have to kircher a lot of kircher peas?" asked a student. Thomas Feibel replies shrewdly, "No, but lots of peas!"

In conclusion, he recommended that the older student teachers develop their own rules for media use for the younger ones. "The best way is with photos and videos. The Internet is full of dangers and even adults don't have a solution for many of the problems," he said. With his guidebook: "Jetzt pack doch mal das Handy weg!", which is available free of charge on our Onleihe app, he gives good advice for desperate parents, but also those seeking advice.

The best thing is to read a book to your pet when mom and dad don't have time

Thomas Feibel's reading tip

Munich-based author Theresa Hannig presented an exciting online reading from her dystopian novel "Pantopia" for grades 10 to 12. With her books, she primarily aims to awaken a desire for change in young adults. In the discussion that followed, some student*innen expressed a certain fear of the future with regard to the rapid development of artificial intelligence depicted in the book. Theresa Hanning, however, paints a positive picture of the future and tries to show student that artificial intelligence can be programmed by humans. "It is therefore in our hands to program the future positively," she says. The likeable Munich native was enthusiastic about the student and the cultural togetherness that is lived out at the DISD.

The popular children's book author and illustrator Jörg Hilbert delighted the children of the first and second grades in an online reading with his funny stories about the brave Ritter Rost. He gave an insight into his work as a book author. He explained how texts are created, pictures are produced and how he finally turns the whole thing into a book. A musical interlude concluded the reading.

On the last day of Book Week, the elementary school students were allowed to come to school dressed up as their favorite book character. Self-made and very creative costumes such as Elmar the Elephant, Honey Bee, Ritter Rost and Happy the Dog were particularly impressive. A perfect conclusion for the DISD book week, where the student students were successfully motivated to read but also to think about media use, AI, internet, cyberbullying.