Oh my goodness! Dear, dear Judith Kerr. Your amazing, insightful, warm, funny writing and art are forever part of our family’s collective memory. Thank you for Mog, thank you for Sophie and the Tiger and thank you for the adventures of Anna and Max that my Anna and I are sharing
Rosalie tweeted:
i went to a judith kerr talk where she said that when mog was translated into german she was stubbornly rendered in the text as a male cat "because feminism hadn't really hit there yet". pause. small smile. "so i waited some years and gave mog kittens and let them sort it out."
Melissa Cox tweeted:
While I am heartbroken about Judith Kerr, I know that to escape Nazis, build a life and family in a new country, create a wealth of books that generations of children and adults adore, and to go to parties in great frocks well into your 90s, is a well-lived life.
Last week, Kerr was named illustrator of the year at the British Book Awards, although she didn’t attend the ceremony. Murtagh said she had been “absolutely thrilled” to receive the news.
A new book, The Curse of the School Rabbit, described by HarperCollins as a “laugh-out loud story of a boy, a rabbit, and a lot of bad luck”, will be published in June. Kerr told the Observer in an interview last week that her greatest fear was “not being able to work”.
Waterstones quotes Judith and adds a poignant comment:
'If you’ve got a life that so many people didn’t have, you can’t waste it'
We are very sad to hear of the death of Judith Kerr, creator of Mog, The Tiger Who Came to Tea and many other classic children's stories. A cherished author who will be missed by so many.
Here is a full tribute to Judith via the Waterstones blog:
As we mark the sad death of the children’s author and illustrator, we celebrate the life and work of a writer who defined millions of childhoods with her iconic stories, such as the classic The Tiger Who Came to Tea and the eternally lovable Mog the Forgetful Cat.
Numerous standalone picture books followed in the post-Mog 21st century, from the lyrical, dreamlike counting book One Night in the Zoo to the anarchic salute to crime fighting pensioners in The Great Granny Gang. The recipient of a richly deserved OBE in 2012, Kerr was as prolific as she was modest, as creative as she was diffident. With her death we lose one of those rare authors who can shape entire childhoods with a deceptively simple storyline or a universally cherished character.
‘I just wanted to say: Remember. Remember me. But do get on with your lives.’