“We Go on Adventures…” – How Children Deal with Golem Representations in Literature and Popular Culture

The Golem is not only a central figure in Jewish mysticism and literature. He is also present in various media and popular culture for children and young adults. There are Golem toys, Golem characters in video games, movies, comics, and books. This frequency demonstrates the Golem’s contemporary significance and the importance of remembering old legends. The Golem has become part of our reality, represented by robots, artificial intelligence, and genetic manipulations. It is therefore important to find out what ideas children have about the Golem. The author of this article gives a historical overview of Golem stories and introduces Golem representations in contemporary children’s literature and media culture. Then she focuses on the analysis of Anke Kuhl’s comic Lehmriese lebt! (Clay Giant’s Alive!, 2015) − a humorous Golem story for children full of interpictorial and intertextual references to other Golem tales – and shows what ideas children have developed about the Golem after reading the book. Concentrating on the analysis of illustrated texts, the author points out the children’s perspectives on the Golem as well as intertextual and interpictorial traces of other stories.