Author: Ingrid von Heiseler, 1990: Einer tanzt aus der Reihe.

English Version: thanks to Igor Cusack who helped with the translation

About the book: The story is about a single mother. While in kindergarten her son is already showing “conspicuous behaviour”. When he finally starts school, the elementary school teachers are confronted with unsolvable problems. This headstrong child cannot “sit still”, nor does he want to comply with the teachers’ instructions. School psychologists, play therapists, neurologists, analysts make their diagnoses. They range from “wonderful spontaneity” (which the “normal” school is not able to cope with) to a “too strong Oedipus complex” to a “behavioural disorder”. An odyssey from school to school, from therapist to therapist begins. With her “narrative report”, the author provides both an impressive example of a provincial interpretation of education and psychology in the 1960s, and a cheerful and melancholy portrait of a mother-son relationship in which they manage to keep going despite all adversity. (1990)

Now also available in the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek