Much-loved children’s author Judith Kerr has received a lifetime achievement award from the BookTrust charity.

The author of The Tiger who Came to Tea and Mog was presented with the award at London Zoo, on Wednesday.

Award judge Shami Chakrabarti said the children’s author, who fled Nazi Germany with her family in 1933,
represented "the enduring power of storytelling and the written word".

Ms Kerr symbolised "the best of Britain, Europe [and] literature" and had made "the most enormous contribution to children's writing in the UK", Ms Chakrabarti said.

Born in 1923, Ms Kerr moved across Europe with her family to escape Nazi persecution before eventually settling in England.

Accepting the award, Ms Kerr told the Guardian: “When a prize is given for a lifetime’s achievement, age is going to play a part and I may have an unfair advantage. Inevitably the judges must say: ‘She’s 93, she might not be around to give it to next year’, which is acutely unfair to young illustrators and authors in their 80s.”
She paid tribute to the UK for accepting her as a child refugee and praised the BookTrust, for its “fantastic work getting children reading”.

She also thanked the tigers of London zoo that inspired her famous book, “without which I probably wouldn’t be here today,” she said.