Jim Knopf

Another of Liam's gifts this Christmas was a "Jim Knopf" Marionette. This is from his favorite story "Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer (Jim Button and Lukas the Train Driver.) A children's story by Michael Ende, who many people know for "The Neverending Story."

There is a very famous version of this story made into a play by the Augsburg Puppet theatre, which is quite famous over here. Liam has the DVD of this puppet play and we had to watch it daily so many times I cannot count.

I am not sure that I ever saw a human being so excited as the moment when he was face to face with a real life Jim. He was running around the room shaking, yelling JIM JIM JIM. This Jim is not for him to play with though, but to hang up in his room where he can see him.

Jim has been up in Liam's room for a few weeks now and Liam still talks to him every day. When we are getting him dressed or ready for bed, he has to say "hello Jim" and then I pick him up so he can shake Jim's hand.

For the whole story of Jim, check out this link

Here is a bit of the puppet play from YouTube:


And here are some more Jim images I found: