Anna is glad to have a friend who can hear her thoughts because she has her share of problems. Her parents live apart and she is passed between them like a parcel, mornings and overnights with Papa and afternoons with Mama. She is getting ready for school when the elf gets into her head. He is the kind of elf that lives in heads. There is trouble in school in the form of a triangle of broken Anna, Hermann who loves her, and Peter whom Anna really loves. To resolve all these problems requires great ingenuity by Anna and lots of courage on the part of the elf. Elf in the Head is an unusual book, funny, sad and full of nail-biting suspense. Vienna-born Christine Nostlinger is one of Europe's finest children's authors and winner of the Hans Christian Andersen medal for children's literature. With illustrations by Jutta Bauer
Author
Christine Nöstlinger was an Austrian writer best known for children's books. By her own admission, Nöstlinger was a wild and angry child. After finishing high school, she wanted to become an artist, and studied graphic arts at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. She worked as a graphic artist for a few years, before marrying a journalist, Ernst Nöstlinger, with whom she had two daughters. The majority of Nöstlinger's production is literature for children and for young people, and she also writes for television, radio and newspapers. She centres on the needs of children in her work, with an anti-authoritarian bent. She does not shy away from tackling difficult subjects like racism, discrimination and self-isolation. Her first book was Die feuerrote Friederike, published in 1970, which she illustrated herself. The book was published in English in 1975 as Fiery Frederica. Awards and recognition: Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Youth Literature Prize) 1973, 1988 Friedrich Bödecker Prize 1972 Kinder- und Jugendbuchpreis der Stadt Wien (Viennese Youth Literature Prize) (five-time winner) Österreichischer Staatspreis für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur (Austrian Youth Literature Prize) 1974, 1979 Hans Christian Andersen Award 1984 Tolereis des österreichischen Buchhandels für Toleranz in Denken und Handeln 1998 Zürcher Kinderbuchpreis "La vache qui lit" (Zurich Youth Literature Prize) 1990 Erster Preis der Stiftung Buchkunst 1993 The inaugural Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation for Der Hund kommt! (English: A Dog's Life, translated by Anthea Bell) 1996 Wildweibchenpreis 2002 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2003
