Author:Erich Kästner
'Password Emil!'
Emil is excited to be taking the train on his own for the first time. He doesn't like the look of his fellow passenger, the man in the bowler hat. Emil will just have to keep his wits about him and his money in his pocket. But Emil falls asleep and when he wakes up the man in the bowler hat is gone - and so is the money! Emil is determined to get it back. He teams up with a gang of young detectives and so begins a hair-raising chase across Berlin to catch the dirty rotten thief...
BACKSTORY: Learn all about the book's brave author and find out just how good a sleuth you would be.
This is a well-presented edition of a real classic, and I hope it helps it find the new audience it deserves
—— The BookbagBoth boys - me in 1955, my son in 1996 - seemed to be drawn into this story in some way beyond the usual...The main pleasure of the book is in the way in which it plays to the fantasy of omnipotence in a child: that a team of kids could really organise themselves into a team of detectives and catch a thief
—— Michael Rosen , GuardianA great political story: democracy in action
—— Philip Pullman , Ten books every Year 7 child should readThe perfect introduction to the world of fictional crime detection
—— IndependentEmil is a wonder... the book had, and still has, the effect of making me feel part of Emil's little gang of boys... Emil and the Detectives is a little masterpiece... Read it and you will be happy
—— Maurice SendakEmil for me personally is very important, but also it's very important in the history of children's books, and again it reminds us that Germany is not just simply about the period 1933 to 1945
—— Michael Rosen , BBC News