Judith Kerr, an extraordinary life

By E.W.

IT WAS only ten days ago that Judith Kerr, at the age of 95, won Illustrator of the Year at the British Book Awards, the publishing trade’s annual celebration of the best in the business. Since Ms Kerr had been a heroine of British children’s literature from the publication of her first book, “The Tiger Who Came to Tea”, in 1968, one might reasonably say it was about time, too. But it was only the year before, in 2018, that the awards deigned to recognise illustrators at all. The first winner was Axel Scheffler, the illustrator of Julia Donaldson’s “Gruffalo” books.

Still, Ms Kerr never lacked for attention from her millions of adoring readers (and their parents). “The Tiger Who Came to Tea”—in which the eponymous feline arrives at the home of a girl named Sophie and proceeds to eat all the food in the house and drink all the water from the taps—had sold 1m copies by its author’s 94th year and has been the subject of a touring exhibition and a travelling stage show. Equally beloved was Ms Kerr’s stories about Mog, a family cat; the series finished with the ground-breaking “Goodbye Mog”, in which the beloved pet died. Ms Kerr was nearly 80 when the book was published in 2002 and said that she wanted to address the subject of death. At her age, she said, “you begin to think about those who are going to be left—the children, the grandchildren. I just wanted to say: Remember. Remember me. But do get on with your lives.”