Struwwelpeter, By Heinrich Hoffman

In the children’s book Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffman, the cover typically illustrates a character from the first story, shock-headed Peter.
“Just look at him! There he stands,
With his nasty hair and hands.
See! his nails are never cut;
They are grimed as black as soot;
And the sloven, I declare,
Never once has combed his hair;
Anything to me is sweeter
Than to see Shock-headed Peter.” (Hoffman, 3)
Shock-headed Peter has been popular and influential through many generations, so much that it has been spoofed, parodied, and remade over 700 times. The story has remained popular for so long because of its interesting and funny parodies of German tales for children, over time the book itself has become almost as popular as the Grimm’s Brother
The cover is very similar to the original German illustration of shock-headed Peter. In this image, Peter is shown wearing the same clothes as in the original version. This image shows Peter’s hair as more filled in and less all over the place. His nails, while still very long, are shown at a more reasonable length for a young boy to actually live with. This image seems to stay with the main idea that he is just a dirty young boy. The image does not seem to add any extra information to the story, it just confirms the text. This image does, however, show a bit more expression on the young boys face. He appears to be more irritated rather than upset about his appearance, which is expected from a little boy to not care what he looks like or if he stinks. While the background in this image is fairly blank it is still very important. Unlike the original image, this background is pure white rather than yellowish brown. This makes Peter look less dirty since it does not give the sense of dirt all around him. He also seems more together in this differing from the original. His hair while still messy seems to be shaped and together enough to look decent. This version of shock-headed Peter is very simplistic and underdone compared to other versions of the same character. While image two is very simplistic background wise, image three uses its background to its
In this image the background remained simplistic similar to the original, it simply just wants to emphasis the dirtiness of the young boy. The background also has more of a yellowish brown tone to it rather than it being plain white to make it look like dirt coming from Peter. In this image, his clothes are ripped and wrinkled making them look unclean as well. He only has one shoe on, and on the foot, with no shoe, the sock is falling down and has a hole at the front where is big toe is hanging out. The portrayal of his clothes helps to confirm that he is nasty and lacks self-care, especially in the cleaning area. His hair in this version is different from many others because it appears to be very thin, and looks to be falling out in some areas. His hair just appears to be going everywhere rather than in one straight direction like many of the other. His facial expression looks like he does not care what others think, and that he does not mind being a dirty little boy and having globs of dirt on his face. In this depiction, Emerson wanted to stress the basics of the story, that shock-headed Peter was a dirty little boy with little to no self-hygiene. The image itself looks very roughly drawn like it was sketched with a pencil as a rough draft. The unfinished look of the boy appeals to the face that he is so unclean he does not look like he has finished getting ready as if he has forgotten to put on his