Ping!
Curious about Max and Moritz?
I was so I went over to ebay and now post some of the customer reviews. I understand why ole Adolph would like that stuff. Some of it is a tad sadistic.
Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908) is known as the author of "Max and Moritz," but the scope of his works is much broader. He is not an author of children's books in the first place. He wrote many stories of satire and slapstick humor not primarily aimed at children, illustrated by his own drawings - for which he is justly famous. Some people even regard him as the father of the modern comic strip. Had he worked in our time, his equals would be the likes of F. K. Waechter, Tomi Ungerer, Jean-Jacques Sempé, and Ronald Searle.
Although the two cannot be compared, Busch's "Max and Moritz" ranks in Germany on the same level as Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" in the English speaking world. Wherever an Englishman would quote Lewis Carroll's "Alice", a German is likely to quote Busch.
Children won't catch Busch's gentle satire in "Max and Moritz." The whole concept of satire is not familiar to them, of course. But while the little ones breathlessly follow the naughty pranks, Dad smiles at the fun Busch makes of the adults in "Max and Moritz." Widow Tibbets is a good example. While professing tender feelings for her chicks, she is in reality rather practical minded. So when Max and Moritz manage to kill her chickens - and the rooster, for that matter - she grieves, but not too deeply:
When the worthy Widow Tibbets
(Whom the cut below exhibits)
Had recovered, on the morrow,
From the dreadful shock of sorrow,
She (as soon as grief would let her
Think) began to think 'twere better
Just to take the dead, the dear ones
(Who in life were walking here once),
And in a still noonday hour
Them, well roasted, to devour.
In fact, Walter Arndt's translation in this edition is very good and captures precisely Busch's style.
Let me add a word of warning to trusting parents. Busch shares the mischievous streak in Max and Moritz, and while his two young protagonists play rather violent tricks on the townspeople - a taylor almost drowns and a teacher gets his face burned from an exploding pipe - Busch himself plays the most violent trick on Max and Moritz. In their last prank they cut open the grain sacks of a farmer who finds the two boys in their hiding place, drags them to a mill and has them ground to pieces, which - Gary Larson would have loved that part - are being eaten by two of the Miller's ducks:
"In with 'em!" Each wretched flopper
Headlong goes into the hopper.
As the farmer turns his back, he
Hears the mill go "creaky! cracky!"
Here you see the bits post mortem,
Just as Fate was pleased to sort 'em.
Master Miller's ducks with speed
Gobbled up the coarse-grained feed.
The good and upright people of the village are so relieved. Good riddance to Max and Moritz, they think. But of course they put that more politically correct:
Through the place in short there went
One wide murmur of content:
"God be praised! the town is free
From this great rascality!"
In short: this is great stuff for the kids if you manage to explain the fine points. As a starting point I recommend to brand the pranks of Max and Moritz as "very naughty" and take it from there. Once the kids begin to understand that the grinder is an even worse (adult) version of the two boys' malicious pranks you have won half the battle.