LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
One of our Books of the Year 2014 The classic story of Lottie and Luise, two identical little girls who meet for the first time at summer camp and discover that they are twins, is famous as a film. Here, in this beautifully produced edition, Eric Kästner’s original is incomparably more subtle and touching while still being very funny. Having made friends, the two little girls decide they never want to be separated again and, what’s more, they want to get their parents back together. Swapping places, they each go and live with the other’s parent and try to adapt to an unfamiliar way of life. Can they keep up the pretence? And can they reunite their parents? A wonderful story brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell.
A Piece of Passion from Gesche Ipsen, commissioning editor I love Erich Kästner as much now as I did when I was young. His books are so precious to me, that I will buy new copies for friends who ask to borrow them, rather than lend them my own. Even my best friends… As a child, I devoured them without coming up for air. His plots are without fail exciting, and Trier’s illustrations both handsome and subtle – but there is much more even than that to it: Kästner writes like a dream, is very, very funny, and (most importantly) never patronises his readers. His child protagonists are never ‘just’ children. They are resourceful and imaginative, clever, cheerful, funny and brave – as well as sad, anxious and fearful. They are, in short, just like adults. Which is the truth about children, and is what makes Kästner irresistible even to readers of a rather more advanced age.
LoveReading4Kids
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About
The Parent Trap Synopsis
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 places. Everyone is fooled (apart from the dog) and, despite a few mistakes and misadventures, everything goes to plan for Luise as Lottie and Lottie as Luise - until their father meets a young, beautiful woman and things start to unravel...
Funny, 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.
Anthea Bell is an award-winning translator. Having studied English at Oxford University, she has had a long and successful career, translating works from French, German and Danish. She is best known for her translations of the much-loved Asterix books, Stefan Zweig and W.G. Sebald.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781782690559 |
| Publication date: |
6th November 2014 |
| Author: |
Erich Kastner |
| Illustrator: |
Walter Trier |
| Publisher: |
Pushkin Children's Books |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
137 pages |
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Press Reviews
Erich Kastner Press Reviews
Walter Trier's deceptively innocent drawings are as classic as Kastner's words; I never tire of them -- Quentin Blake
A treasure-trove of childhood reading Huffington Post
Author
About Erich Kastner
Erich Kästner began his career as a journalist and, later, a freelance theatre critic. In 1929 he published his first book for children, Emil and the Detectives, which has since been translated into nearly 60 languages and sold millions of copies around the world. He then went on to publish Dot and Anton in 1931 and The Flying Classroom in 1933, both illustrated by Walter Trier, whose elegant, perceptive illustrations grace numerous Kästner books.
After the Nazis took power in Germany, Kästner’s books – thinly veiled critiques of society’s fall to fascism – were denounced and burnt. He faced repeated arrest and interrogation by the Gestapo, resulting in his blacklisting and exclusion from the writers’ guild. As such, his stories celebrate democracy, kindness, independent thinking and courage, and denounce unfairness, bullying, assumed authority and tyranny of any kind.
After the end of World War II, Kästner moved to Munich and published The Parent Trap, later adapted into a hit film by Walt Disney. In 1957 he received the Georg Büchner Prize and, later, the Order of Merit and the Hans Christian Andersen Award for his contribution to children’s literature. One of the best loved and most read children’s authors around the world, Kästner died in Munich in 1974.
Erich Kästner is the only writer known to have been present at the burning of his own books (‘Against decadence and the decline of morals!’ they yelled), on Berlin’s Opernplatz on 10 May 1933:
‘… And then Goebbels appeared. He stood in front of a balustrade besieged by microphones and gesticulated before the light of the fire like a little devil before Hell. He vociferated and spouted, called writers by their names and committed their books to the flames and oblivion. This was no Grand Inquisitor, but a little molesting pyrotechnician… Our intention to attend this apocalyptic public festival, as thorough chroniclers, to the end was thwarted by an unforeseen episode. ‘There’s Kästner!’ a young woman called out suddenly, as she passed by with her boyfriend. Her surprise at seeing me, so to speak, among the mourners at my own funeral, was so great that she even pointed at me. I must admit that I didn’t feel exactly comfortable. Shortly before, someone else had already called my name, loudly – that student of Gundolf’s, on his microphone-besieged balustrade…’ (from ‘Can Books Be Burnt? On the Anniversary of an Outrage’, 1947; published in On the Burning of Books, Atrium Verlag, 2013)
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