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Thursday 18 June 2015

The Parent Trap by Erich Kastner

I got this from the library for my nine year old self. Thats when I read and loved Emil and the Detectives and well, look at the cover. Who could resist it?


I finished it today with a sigh. Its so good. I loved the Hayley Mills movie and liked the Lindsay Lohan one but neither of them could touch the book. Published in Germany in 1949, these original twins are called Lottie and Luise and live in Munich and Vienna. Their first meeting is at a summer camp in central Germany. The descriptions of their daily lives are so evocative - what they eat - stuffed pancakes, veal schnitzel, goulash and what they do - shopping for and cooking beef and pasta soup, attending the opera - its all wonderful. I LOVED it.

I don't know if my boys will too, but I hope so. My best bet is the nine year old who liked the All of a Kind Family. This edition is published by Pushkin Children's Books and its beautiful. The illustrations are by Walter Trier, a contemporary of Kastners. Look at this one..

2 comments:

  1. Oh, this is so cool! I've never read the book. My library has Emil and the Detectives and another book by Kastner, but the only other search results were the first movie. :(

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    1. It really is lovely - I hope you can get it - I assumed Pushkin was an US imprint but maybe not? (I knew you'd like it!)

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