Judith Kerr’s Creatures: A stunning biography of the classic bestselling children’s author Judith Kerr – creator of The Tiger Who Came to Tea. The perfect illustrated gift book - Hardcover

Kerr, Judith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0007513216 ISBN 13: 9780007513215

Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks, 2023

Synopsis

A lavishly illustrated retrospective in celebration of the 90th birthday of Judith Kerr, author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and many other iconic books.

Her story begins with the extraordinary events of her early childhood in Berlin, dramatically cut short by the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Party in 1933. Judith tells of her family’s struggles with language and money, and what it was like to be a German refugee in London during the war.

We see her early attempts at drawing and writing; her sketches and work from art school, and her textile designs from her first job. We hear of her life-changing meeting with her future husband, the scriptwriter Nigel Kneale, and her time at the BBC, first as a reader and then as a scriptwriter herself.

Judith’s career as a children’s book writer and illustrator began after she had children, and over forty years on she is still producing classic picture books. She is a rare and wonderful talent and this is a fascinating insight into the person behind the books that have been enjoyed by generations.

About this title

Review:

“... captures the colourful innocence of the 1950s and 1960s, with its harlequin tights, squat stoves and fathers in hats...Kerr’s world is one in which the small and lost come to be treasured.” – The Times

“176 large, beautiful pages of nostalgia for anyone who has been a child in the past half century.” – The Independent

About the Author:

Judith Kerr OBE was born in Berlin. Her family left Germany in 1933 to escape the rising Nazi party, and came to England. She studied at the Central School of Art and later worked as a scriptwriter for the BBC.
 
Judith married the celebrated screenwriter Nigel Kneale in 1954. She left the BBC to look after their two children, who inspired her first picture book, The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Published in 1968 and never out of print in the fifty years since, it has become a much-loved classic and perennial bestseller.
 
Judith was awarded the Booktrust Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, and in 2019 was named Illustrator of the Year at the British Book Awards. Judith died in May 2019 at the age of 95, and her stories continue to entertain and delight generations of children.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks
• Publication date: 2023
• ISBN 10: 0007513216
• ISBN 13: 9780007513215
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176