Bookclub: Judith Kerr

Editor's Note: This episode of Bookclub is available to listen online or for download.

Judith Kerr said something very striking at our Bookclub recording that has stayed with me. She wondered if the children of refugees coming to this country today have the same feelings as she did after her family’s flight from Germany in the 1930s - that the world was opening up, and offering a new beginning. There were excitements ahead. Maybe this thought is lodged in my mind because the depressing conclusion is that many of today’s children will have little of that expectation. Maybe I’m wrong, and I hope I am, but I was moved by Judith’s recollection of the optimism that shines through her story, which became the journey of the family portrayed in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

Following the rule that after a certain milestone has been passed, it’s not only acceptable but almost obligatory to mention a person’s age, we spoke about what it was like for an author now in her nineties to look back to childhood. The book has become a set text in German schools - imagine it! - and the reason that it has become such a family favourite here (for readers of all ages) is that it catches a feeling which is still with her, all these decades later : adventure. Her father had to take the family away from Berlin because he was facing arrest, and probably death, but for Judith and her brother the train journey to Switzerland (which was a chilling though funny incident on the border which she read for us) was fun. She was insistent about that. They heard new voices, saw new places, and in Paris, where they settled first, she learned French and absorbed a different culture. Although she now feels utterly part of this country, where her children were born and where she has always been at home, she has a cheery honesty about the years that preceded her arrival. Compared with her parents’ experience after Hitler came to power in 1933, hers has been a trouble-free life.

I think one of the reasons that the book is so warming is that, as well as some beautifully direct story-telling, it glows with the excitement of a young person’s exposure to new experiences. Anna - Judith’s fictionalised self - is, she says, rather nicer than the author. None of us sitting around her believed that, but it was an honest reflection. Considering the dark backdrop to the book - she discovered a letter of her father’s after his death that revealed that her mother had contemplated suicide in Paris - we had a conversation that pulsed with good humour and optimism.

Judith is still writing - she’s five-sixths through a new book, she said - and she is someone with the twinkling good humour that draws children to her work. We did talk briefly about one of my hobby horses - the silly habit in bookshops of labelling everything for children in defined age brackets, as if a twelve-year-old would ever be seen dead picking a book out of the ‘10 to 12 year olds’ section - and the evidence over four decades now that When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and its two sequels is a story that can be enjoyed by readers of all ages, and should.

At a time when we’ve marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Judith is a fitting Bookclub guest. But this isn’t a story that takes you backwards. It’s about the resilience and the optimism of the young, as much as anything else. And these qualities are eternal. It brings me back to that first question. Are refugees’ children as hopeful nowadays? Maybe the answer is that they would be, if they were given the chance.

Next month’s book is one that can safely be described as a ripping yarn, Wilbur Smith’s When the Lion Feeds, the first of his novels about the Courtney family, published in 1964. Pick it up, and don’t expect to put it down soon. This programme will be broadcast on 1 March 2015.

Happy reading

Jim

Jim Naughtie presents Bookclub on BBC Radio 4