The Parent Trap

'A wonderful story brilliantly translated' Julia Eccleshare

'Warmly recommended' Irish Times

Luise has ringlets. Lottie has braids. Apart from that they look exactly the same. But they have never set eyes on each other before.

When the two girls meet at a summer camp and discover the secret behind their similarity, they decide to switch places. Luise will go home as Lottie, and Lottie as Luise. Everyone is fooled (apart from the dog) and the plan seems to be working - until a beautiful young woman sets her sights on Luise's father. Will the girls come clean in order to avert disaster?

Funny, moving, affectionate and improbably, The Parent Trap has twice been adapted for film, and endures as one of the great classics of children's literature.

Part of the new Pushkin Children's Classics series of thrilling, magical and inspiring stories from around the world, which young readers will return to time and again.

Translated by Anthea Bell

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.

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