What a charming story this is! Kafka and the Doll is based on a factual event in Franz Kafka’s life, when he and his love, Dora Diamant, encountered a crying girl in a Berlin Park. In this fictionalised account, the girl (Irma) has lost her doll (Soupsy) and Kafka, moved by her sadness, invents a tale of Irma’s beloved Soupsy going on an adventure. As a supposed postman, Kafka explains he has a letter from Soupsy at home to be delivered the next day to Irma! And so, Soupsy begins a peripatetic life of travel around the world, while the little girl becomes the recipient of wonderful letters from an author destined for fame.

Larissa Theule based this sweet story on Dora Diamant’s retelling of this episode to Kafka’s biographer. Illustrator Rebecca Green brings it to life with bold and assured strokes. The author’s note and short biography of Kafka are added bonuses to an already captivating story. Highly recommended for 3+.

Alexa Dretzke is the assistant manager and children’s book buyer at Readings Hawthorn.