Eleven-year-old Rocca lives a rather unique life. While her dad watches over her as an astronaut from outer space, Rocca lives alone with her squirrel and is attending a normal school for the first time in her life. She fearlessly confronts the class bullies, and always stands up for justice. That’s why she makes friends with the homeless Caspar and tries to help him. All the while she is also attempting to win over her grandmother’s heart.
„Rocca“ takes us back to the feeling of great children stories by the likes of Lindgren, Kästner and others. They didn’t highlight the difference between people, but were brimming full of fantasy, ideas, the vision of justice and carried the conviction that children can change things in a big way for the greater good – in an unbridled, wild, and wonderful way. What is needed is curiosity and courage.
Both of these traits are found in Rocca, the strong and unconventional protagonist. Having been raised in a camp for astronauts, she moves to Hamburg and turns the world there upside down with her very own worldview. The solution is often closer and less complicated than adults make it out to be. And thus she shows everybody how easy life can be when we stand up for each other and work together to get things done. And it’s lots of fun, too.
It’s not a new idea to teach children to be nice to each other, but Rocca does it in a different way: she doesn’t dictate the ways in which we should act, but her questions will stay in your mind. And questions change the world. Just like Rocca.
