#414 DTV JUNIOR / ASS – KENNST DU DIESE DICHTER? – BUCH UND SPIEL (Nr. 7701) (1981)

This book is not a book about toys, but it has its place in this blog anyway. I love books, I read many of them throughout the year, so I also sometimes take a look at old books at flea markets. That’s where I found this book. I saw the cards on the cover, and that caught my attention. I picked up the book, and I discovered something wonderful. The book is at the same time a quartet game, so you can learn by playing and by reading.

The deck of cards is “hidden” in the book. It consists of 32 cards (8 families), each of them representing one country. For example “Klassiker aus Russland” (Classics from Russia) are: Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Gogol and Tolstoi, or the Classics from America are: Melville, Cooper, Poe and Twain. The back of the cards include a short biography. The cards are manufactured by ASS (Altenburger Spielkartefabrik).

The book is defined as a quiz book on the cover. The biggest part of it is biographies from the greatest writers and poets from Europe and the United States, one page for each writer, although instead of the name, you can only see his or her silhouette. This means, you have to study the bios on the cardbacks first, or try to guess who could be that person from the silhouette, so you can connect the poet with the facts.

The last pages are really a quiz with many questions which are very difficult to answer, I mean, you really need to study everything thoroughly if you want to get some answers correctly.

On the last page of the book, two games are proposed. The first game is the typical quartet game, but the second one is a quiz game: One person reads aloud the back of one card, and all players try to guess who the poet is. The first who guess it, keeps the card, and the person who got the most cards at the end of the game wins.

The price of the book in 1981 was 12,80 DM (6,55 EUR). Other titles in this collection were: "Kennst du diese Komponisten?" and "Kennst du diese Baustile?".

UPDATE (JAN/2017): I found some time ago two more boks of this series: Kennst du diese Opern? and Kennst du diese Maler? I proceed with the pictures.

Barock and Italienische Oper

Nationale Schulen and 20. Jahrhundert

Zwischen Tradition und Moderne and Operette

Grosse Oper / Musikdrama and Deutsche Oper

The card backs look like this

Gotik and Renaissance

Barock and Romantik

Impressionismus und Expressionismus

Moderne and Surrealismus

The card backs look like this

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: KENNST DU DIESE DICHTER? – QUIZBUCH AND QUARTETTSPIEL (Nr. 7701), KENNST DU DIESE MALER? – QUIZBUCH AND QUARTETTSPIEL (Nr. 7703) and KENNST DU DIESE OPER? – QUIZBUCH AND QUARTETTSPIEL (Nr. 7704),  
• Year: 1981
• Company: DTV Junior / Ass (Germany)