Anthea Bell

The adventures of a tiny girl no bigger than a thumb and her many animal friends.

"The last novel by one of Germany's most important postwar writers, All for Nothing was published in 2006. It describes with matter-of-fact clarity and acuity, and a roving point of view, the atmosphere in East Prussia during the winter of 1944-1945, as the German forces are in retreat and the Red Army approaches. The von Globig family's manor is falling into a state of disrepair. Auntie runs the estate as best she can since Eberhard von Globig, a...

Martin's school is no ordinary school. There are snowball fights, kidnappings, cakes, a parachute jump, a mysterious man called 'No-Smoking' who lives in a railway carriage and a play about a flying classroom. As the Christmas holidays draw near, Martin and his friends - nervous Uli, cynical Sebastian, Johnny, who was rescued by a sea captain, and Matthias, who is always hungry (particularly after a meal) - are preparing for the end of term festivities....

A little girl walks to the end of the world to find her seven brothers and free them from enchantment.

A king's daughter undertakes a difficult task to rescue her six brothers from the enchantment imposed on them by their wicked stepmother.

While on their way to Bremen, four aging animals who are no longer of any use to their masters find a new home after outwitting a gang of robbers.

A strange little man helps the miller's daughter spin straw into gold for the king, on the condition that she will give him her first-born child.

The fisherman's greedy wife is never satisfied with the wishes granted her by an enchanted fish.

When six of her seven kids are swallowed by a wicked wolf, Old Mother Goat devises a way to rescue them.