Stories about twenty-five children
from twenty countries

The children’s moment.
First edition: March 2023

About the book

Inspired by 25 expressive, exciting, and powerful photos from 17 photographers from 10 countries (including two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Muhammed Muheisen with his UNICEF Photo of the Year 2017), Folke Tegetthoff tells about 25 children from 20 countries – from Afghanistan to Bulgaria, from Myanmar to Ireland, from China to Madagascar.

  • In his stories, it is not about what the photo shows, but rather stories and fairy tales full of imagination, about various topics that the children of the 21st century are confronted with.
    “What did the world look like that must have happened on either side of this captured moment? What had happened when the photographer had already packed away his camera and gone in search of the next motif?”

    “The fascination of this work was to add a new, different reality to the indisputable reality (of the photos). For there is not only the one that can be perceived with our senses, but – as we know from the animal world – an almost infinite number: the dog hears, the bat feels, the mouse smells, what we are not capable of, what does not exist for us, but for the animals very much – THEIR reality, which plays out quite real next to ours…”

    The Indian beggar with her child is a turning point in the life of a manager plagued by burnout.
    The girl with a python around her neck leads directly into a beautiful fairy tale.
    Behind the picture of a “Hijra” (transgender) reveals the suffering of a homosexual teenager in India in the 80s.
    The portrait of a boy and a cow leads into the fairy tale world of Ireland and a young shepherd with his sheep directly into the no less “fantastic” world of Instagram.
    The pictures from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria tell of the unfathomable suffering of children amidst war and flight – but always with the hope inherent in fairy tales.
    Historical events (Madagascar), technological achievements (Myanmar), “miracles” caused by religions (Indonesia) are told with the same naturalness with which mythology has tried for millennia to make the inexplicable visible and tangible for us humans.
    25 moments that led to 25 stories and were illustrated by 25 photos – that is THE CHILDREN’S MOMENT …

Reading samples

Reading sample 1: The Girl the Whole World Knew | Syria
Reading sample 2: The seven boys | Afghanistan
Reading sample 3: Moments

A Story to hear

Listen Sample 1: The dog | Myanmar

Music: ©Macroform, Heart Chakra - Note F (Jamendo)The dog | Myanmar