For ever in our imaginations...
Tributes as children’s author Judith dies at 95
CHILDREN’S author and illustrator Judith Kerr, who enchanted millions with books such as The Tiger Who Came to Tea, has died at 95.
Tributes poured in yesterday after her death, following a short illness, was announced by her publisher.
Judith, who fled the Nazis as a child, later dreamed up the tiger tale to amuse her two youngsters.
In a 50-year career she also wrote the Mog series, based on her beloved cat, and more than 30 other books.
She was producing stories and illustrations well into her 90s.
Her latest, The Curse of the School Rabbit, is out in June.
Spandau Ballet musician Gary Kemp said: “Goodbye, Judith Kerr. All my four boys have adored you and I’ve loved reading your work to them. For ever on our bookshelves and in our imaginations.”
Actor and writer David Walliams called her a legend who gave pleasure to millions. He added: “She is gone but her books will live on for ever.”
Charlie and Lola author Lauren Child said she was a “huge admirer” and Francesca Simon, author of the Horrid Henry series, called Kerr’s famous Tiger tale “the perfect book”.
Judith’s family fled Germany for Switzerland in 1933 after her father, a Berlin author and theatre critic hostile to the Nazis, became a target of the Gestapo.
She said: “My mother told me that at 8am the following day the Nazis turned up at our house to seize our passports.”
As they fled, nine-year-old Judith left her favourite toy – a battered bunny.
She said: “I loved Pink Rabbit but I was only allowed one toy and chose a stupid little dog because it was new.
“I always blamed myself for leaving her. Oh, I did miss her.”
More than 30 years later she was to immortalise her lost toy in When Hitler Stole Pink Bunny. It became a set text in German schools.
The family came to London in 1936 and Judith went on to marry TV scriptwriter Nigel Kneale. She gave up work as a BBC script reader when children Tacy and Matthew were born in 1958 and 1960.
And in 1968 she published The Tiger. She said: “I made it up for my twoyear-old daughter who was very bossy. I would tell her all sorts of other stories, which I thought were perfectly good, which she dismissed with ‘Talk Tiger’.
“So, when she and her brother were both at school, I thought I’d try to make it into a picture book.”