The Parent Trap

Luise has ringlets.Lottie has braids. Apartfrom that they look exactlythe same. But they have neverset eyes on each other before.When the two girls meetat a summer camp anddiscover the secret behindtheir similarity, they decideto switch places. Luise willgo home as Lottie, andLottie as Luise. Everyoneis fooled (apart from thedog) and the plan seems tobe working - until a beautifulyoung woman sets her sightson Luise's father. Will thegirls come clean in orderto avert disaster?Funny, moving, affectionateand improbable, The ParentTrap has twice been adaptedfor film, and endures asone of the great classicsof children's literature.



Erich Kästner, writer, poet and journalist, was born in Dresden in 1899. His first children's book, Emil and the Detectives, was published in 1929 and has since sold millions of copies around the world and been translated into around 60 languages. After the Nazis took power in Germany, Kästner's books were burnt and he was excluded from the writers' guild. He won many awards, including the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1960. He died in 1974.Walter Trier was born in Prague in 1880. After moving to Berlin, he became an acclaimed cartoonist and illustrator, and Kästner's collaborator on more than a dozen children's books. Forced to emigrate under Nazi rule, he died in 1951 in Ontario, Canada.Anthea Bell was born in Suffolk in 1936. An illustrious, award-winning translator, she was best known for her translations of the much-loved Asterix books and the work of Zweig and Sebald. She died in 2018.