Preussler, Otfried (1923– ), German author of children's books. During his years as a schoolteacher and headmaster in Bavaria, Preussler wrote a series of popular children's books using traditional fairy‐tale characters and motifs, including Der kleine Wassermann (The Little Water Sprite, 1956), Die kleine Hexe (The Little Witch, 1957), Der Räuber Hotzenplotz (The Robber Hotzenplotz, 1962), and Das kleine Gespenst (The Little Ghost, 1966). Demythified traditional folk‐tale and fairy‐tale villains are the main protagonists of these stories. The child‐sized, spunky, and zany witches, robbers, and ghosts, who are stripped of the dark, evil, and threatening side of their character, are entertaining rather than threatening. Ample use of suspense, slapstick, and situation comedy further endeared these books to children so that they remained best‐sellers for several decades.

To a somewhat older audience Preussler is perhaps best known for Krabat (The Satanic Mill, 1971), a fantastic tale of suspense and romance about a miller's apprentice who succeeds in breaking the evil spell surrounding the mill through friendship and love. Preussler received the Deutscher Jugendbuchpreis (German Prize for Children's and Youth Literature) twice; once in 1963 for The Robber Hotzenplotz and again in 1972 for Krabat.

Bibliography

• Baumgärtner, Clemens Alfred, and Pleticha, Heinrich, ABC und Abenteuer. Texte und Dokumente zur Geschichte des deutschen Kinder‐ und Jugendbuches (2 vols., 1985).
• Doderer, Klaus, Zwischen Trümmern und Wohlstand. Literatur der Jugend 1945–1960 (1988).
• Scharioth, Barbara, ‘Auch im dritten Jahrtausend: Geister sind “in”’, Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel, 33 (1977).

— Eva‐Marie Metcalf

The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Copyright © 2000, 2002, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.