Till Wiebel

"I bet this will be the best summer of your life." These are the last words Malte hears from his mother before she leaves him alone at the entrance gate of the summer camp. But it soon becomes clear that things here are different from what one might imagine a few weeks at summer camp would be like. Supervisors? No such thing. At the summer camp of the ominous Arthur McPush Cooperation, the brightest young minds in the country come together in a world without adults. They are the nerds and misfits who use their summer to split atoms, learn Mozart scores by heart, or break down the entire space-time continuum. A true paradise for tinkerers and the highly gifted.
It's just a shame that Malte Schröder is the most average 13-year-old imaginable. An absolute normal zero. He has never felt so mediocre and out of place. Fortunately, he meets the enfant terrible Shawn Baker, the universal genius Twinkle and the accomplished mechanic Isilda. The three take Malte under their wing. Maybe this summer will really be the best of his life?
But the four soon find out that the Arthur McPush Cooperation is pursuing an agenda of its own. They are being used to realise a crazy plan for the future. Now every single one of them counts in order to stand up to the cunning Cooperation. There is a spark of hope - a spark that carries on and ignites a revolution. "GLAMOUR OR NOTHING. FOR WORSE AND FOREVER."
Till Wiebel was awarded the first Retzhofer Drama Prize in the category "Young Audience" for Funken. The author subjects young adventure literature such as The Famous Five to a contemporary and queer re-reading. It is the nerds and the non-conformists who stand up to the big capitalists. They can no longer afford to be apolitical, nor do they want to be. Their strongest weapon is their team spirit. "In this way, the author creates a world full of humour, clever observations and captivating eccentrics who dare to dream and implement their ideas...", to quote the Retzhofer jury statement.