King Winter's Birthday

<b>A gorgeously illustrated and magical original fairy tale celebrating the seasons.<br> <br>The beautiful story of the seasons gathering to revel in the magic of the natural world, adapted from a rediscovered work by a Jewish author during World War II.</b><br><br>It's King Winter's birthday, and he wants it to be really special. He wants all of his brothers and sisters to be there: King Summer, Queen Spring and Queen Autumn. But the leaves and the trees whisper a warning, and as the four play magical games, something strange begins to happen outside.<br><br>This timeless fairy tale is a celebration of nature’s rhythms, and of a chaotic world restored to order. It was adapted from a story by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, celebrated author of <i>The Passenger</i>. Boschwitz was a refugee from Nazi Germany: he fled, aged 20, in 1935. Young as he was, he understood that it was not safe for someone like him, with a Jewish-born father, to stay. He went from country to country until he made it to England in 1939.<br><br>Before long, Britain was at war with Germany, which meant Ulrich was branded an “enemy alien” and so, along with other German Jews, he was interned in a camp in the Isle of Man. There he wrote <i>King Winter’s Birthday</i>, which he called <i>A Fairy Tale</i>. The story was never published, and Boschwitz was tragically killed in an attack by a German submarine when he was being transported from Australia back to England.<br><br>This story of the four seasons and a demanding birthday boy lay undiscovered for decades – until now.