The Tiger Who Came to Tea

Where it came from

Judith Kerr describes a trip to the zoo and a lonely afternoon with Tacy, her daughter, inspiring the story that became The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Tacy repeatedly asked her to ‘talk the tiger’, refining the story until it was just as she liked it. Years later, once her children were at school, Kerr began creating the book, drawing tigers in the zoo and using her own kitchen as the backdrop. Her publishers asked for the title to be changed from ‘Tacy and the Tiger’.

Where it went next

The Tiger Who Came to Tea celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2018 with Judith Kerr winning the Sainsbury’s Children’s Classic Award. David Wood’s stage adaptation of the story has toured the world since 2008 and Seven Stories’ exhibition of Kerr’s archive has toured the UK since 2009. Judith Kerr collaborated with Oxford animator Joanna Harrison to create an animated film of the story screened on Christmas Eve 2019.

Associated stories

Judith Kerr went on to write many children’s books including the much-loved Mog series based on the antics of her cats. In the 1970s she wrote a trilogy about her early life, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Bombs on Aunt Dainty and A Small Person Far Away, followed by Creatures about her later life and work. The books she wrote after her husband’s death in 2006 have a more wistful tone – My Henry, One Night at the Zoo and the celebration of Grannies, The Great Granny Gang.