Leicester museum to host The Tiger Who Came to Tea exhibition

The Tiger Who Came to Tea has sold more than five million copies since 1968

A new exhibition about the classic children's book The Tiger Who Came to Tea will open in Leicester this month.

The Newarke Houses Museum will host the display from Saturday.

Organisers hope it will create a new generation of fans for the animated book about an extremely hungry but gentle tiger who unexpectedly visits a little girl called Sophie.

The free exhibition will also explore author Judith Kerr's life and childhood experiences which shaped her writing.

Leicester City has worked with Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books, to curate the display which features copies of Judith Kerr's original illustrations.

Judith Kerr's family fled Nazi Germany in 1933

Children will have the chance to enjoy stepping into Sophie's kitchen to have tea with a life-sized "tiger".

The Tiger Who Came to Tea was Kerr's first picture book and has been translated into 11 languages and sold more than five million copies since it was first published in 1968.

Her family fled Germany when the Nazis came to power and were refugees in Switzerland then France before finally settling in London in 1936.

She wrote about these experiences on three semi-autobiographical novels for older children in her Out of the Hitler Time trilogy which also feature in the exhibition.

The exhibition previously ran at Leicestershire's Charnwood Museum, where it attracted thousands of visitors.

Seven Stories chief executive officer Wendy Elliott said: "Seven Stories is honoured to be the custodian of Judith Kerr's archive and to be able to curate an exhibition that celebrates her remarkable life and her outstanding contribution to children's literature.

"Visitors to Newarke Houses Museum will be treated to a opportunity to see reproductions of Judith's precious artwork which shows how, through a lifetime of looking and drawing, her stories have become part of our nation's childhood."