It was his own children, first Uli, then Mücke and Achim, who wanted not only to hear their father's stories but also to read them. While Fallada had previously written stories about children, he now told and wrote stories for children. "Whenever a new one is finished," he reported to his friend Kagelmacher on October 28, 1933, "it is read aloud to Uli, and it is very noticeable how it affects him, what sticks, what misses the mark, what bores..." As is customary in fairy tales, these stories also contain fantastic elements, talking animals, wizards, cloaks of invisibility, jinxed characters, and behind all the turmoil, a solid moral.