Katinka’s Tail

Name: William Joseph
Price range: $

by Judith Kerr

Interest age: 3 to 6

Published by HarperCollins, 2017

Picture books

About this book

Katinka is an ordinary and lovely white pussycat – apart from her tail, which is stripy.

Everyone notices that tail and asks about it – so much so that her owner (an old lady with white fluffy hair who looks rather like the author and illustrator Judith Kerr) finds it somewhat annoying. She always denies that there’s anything odd about her cat with its stripy tail, but is she really right about that?

This is a beautiful, funny, warm and tender picture book, which takes a joyous and magical twist at the end. The drawings are absolutely beautiful and the story flows perfectly. We’re in the presence of a true master of her art here, with Judith Kerr – well, she’s been writing and illustrating books for nearly 50 years!

A book to savour and read over and over again, especially at bedtime. Fans of Judith Kerr’s Mog books will love it, of course...

About the author

Judith Kerr was born on 14 June 1923 in Berlin 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 a distinguished writer whose books were burned by the Nazis. The family passed through Switzerland and France before arriving finally in England in 1936.

Judith went to eleven different schools, worked in the Red Cross during the war, and won a scholarship to the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1945. Since then, she has worked as an artist, a BBC television scriptwriter and, for many decades now, as author and illustrator of children's books.

Judith has a daughter who is a designer and a son who is a novelist. She lives in London.

Judith won our Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.