A Country to Call Home by Lucy Popescu

Author:Lucy Popescu [Popescu, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783526062
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2018-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Lucy Popescu

INTERVIEW WITH

JUDITH KERR

‘If one has spent one’s childhood as a refugee in a succession of strange countries, one’s family feels like an island separate from the rest of the world…’

Judith Kerr was born in Berlin in 1923 but escaped from Hitler’s Germany with her parents and brother in 1933 when she was nine years old. Her father was a drama critic and distinguished writer whose books were burned by the Nazis because he dared to speak out against the regime. The day after the family left Berlin, the authorities came to arrest them, and throughout the war there was a price on her father’s head. Judith and her family passed through Switzerland and France before finally arriving in England in 1936. Judith wrote about her experiences in her classic autobiographical story, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which – along with Bombs on Aunt Dainty and A Small Person Far Away – forms part of the Out of the Hitler Time trilogy.

She won a scholarship to the Central School of Arts in 1945, and since then has worked as an artist, television scriptwriter and, for the past fifty years, as an author and illustrator of children’s books. She married screenwriter Nigel Kneale in 1954 and they had two children together. The Tiger Who Came to Tea was Judith’s first picture book and was published in 1968. She wrote it after telling the story at bedtime to her daughter Tacy and son Matthew (Matthew went on to become a writer himself, winning the Whitbread Book Award for The English Passengers). The book has become a classic and appeared in the Telegraph’s list of top children’s books of all time. It has sold over 5 million copies and is still going strong.

She is also renowned for her feline creation, Mog. This enduringly popular character has charmed generations of children and has starred in a whole stream of books. In 2015 Mog took to the screen in a major Christmas advertising campaign, highlighting the importance of sharing at Christmas. The accompanying book, Mog’s Christmas Calamity, shot to the top of the bestseller list and helped raise vital funds for Save the Children to improve child literacy across the UK. The year 2015 also saw the publication of Mister Cleghorn’s Seal, Judith’s first fiction title since 1978. Inspired by a true story about her father, Alfred Kerr, Mister Cleghorn’s Seal tells the life-affirming tale of Mr Cleghorn who, on a visit to the seaside, rescues a seal pup named Charlie. Her most recent picture book, Katinka’s Tail, was published in October 2017.

Judith lives in south-west London. In 2012 she was awarded an OBE for services to children’s literature and in 2016 she was awarded the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award. She has no plans to retire, saying, ‘I’m miserable if I’m not working. I hope I never have to retire and I count my blessings that I’m still active.’

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