'Walter Trier's deceptively innocent drawings are as classic as Kastner's words;
I never tire of them' Sir Quentin Blake Luise has ringlets. Lottie has braids.
Apart from that they look exactly the same.
But they are sure that they have
never set eyes on each other in their lives. When the two girls meet at a summer
camp and discover the secret behind their similarity, they decide to switch pla
ces. Everyone is fooled (apart from the dog) and, despite a few mistakes and mis
adventures, everything goes to plan for Luise as Lottie and Lottie as Luise - un
til their father meets a young, beautiful woman and things start to unravel...Fu
nny, moving, affectionate and improbable, The Parent Trap has twice been adapted
for film - but the book remains one of the great classics of German children's
literature.
'A treasure-trove of childhood reading' Huffington Post Praise fo
r Emil and the Detectives: 'Marvellous' Philip Pullman (in the Independent's 'Th
e 50 books every child should read'); 'My favourite book as a child...funny, exc
iting and very atmospheric' Michael Rosen; 'A little masterpiece...Read it and y
ou will be happy' Maurice Sendak Erich Kastner, writer, poet and journalist, was
born in Dresden in 1899. His first children's book, Emil and the Detectives, wa
s published in 1929 and has since sold millions of copies around the world and b
een translated into around 60 languages. After the Nazis took power in Germany,
Kastner's books were burnt and he was excluded from the writers' guild.
He wo
n many awards, including the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1960.
He died in 1974. Walter Trier was born in Prague in 1880.
In 1910 he moved to
Berlin, where he would later be introduced to Kastner, and began his career dra
wing cartoons for the Berliner Illustrated. He also contributed to the satirical
weekly Simplicissimus, where during the 1920s, despite great personal risk, he
ridiculed Hitler and the Nazi Party in a series of cartoons. In 1936 he fled to
London, where he was involved in producing anti-Nazi leaflets and political prop
aganda drawings.
He would go on to have a rich career, producing around 150 c
overs for the humorous magazine Lilliput. He died in 1951 in Ontario, Canada. An
thea Bell is an award-winning translator.
Having studied English at Oxford Un
iversity, she has had a long and successful career, translating works from Frenc
h, German and Danish. She is best known for her translations of the much-loved A
sterix books, Stefan Zweig and W.G. Sebald.
