The Little Water Sprite

One spring day, the little Water-sprite is born in a house of reeds at the bottom of a mill pond. Mother and Father Water-sprite are very proud of their son, and they invite their whole family to a party to celebrate and feast on duckweed soup, pickled water-fleas, and other dainties. The baby quickly grows out of his rush basket, and soon the little Water-sprite is bored of gazing out the window at the newts and fish swimming by. There is a whole, new world outside his living room to see! First his father takes him swimming and to play hide-and-seek, and then the little Water-sprite sets out on his own to explore the magical green environs of the mill pond. Along the way he meets many friends, like Cyprian the carp and the nine-eyed lamprey. But his most thrilling adventures await him outside the pond, on land. He just needs to remember not to let his feet get too dry as he plays with the mist fairies, slides down the mill race, and climbs to the moon.

Otfried Preussler (1923-2013) was born into a family of teachers in Reichenberg, Czechoslovakia, and as a boy loved listening to the folktales of the region, including the old Sorbian tale of the sorcerer's apprentice, upon which his bookKrabat & the Sorcerer's Mill is based. Drafted into the army during World War II, Preussler was captured in 1944 and spent the next five years as a prisoner of war in the Tatar Republic. After his release, he moved to Bavaria and became a primary-school teacher and principal, supplementing his income by working as a reporter for a local newspaper and by writing scripts for children's radio. One of the most popular authors for children in Germany, Preussler was twice awarded the German Children's Book Prize. His many books have been translated into fifty-five languages and have sold over fifty million copies. The New York Review Children's Collection published Preussler'sKrabat & The Sorcerer's Mill in 2014, and will publish The Little Witch in Fall 2015, as well as Preussler's most famous children's book,The Robber Hotzenplotz, and The Little Ghost in Fall 2016.

Anthea Bell is a renowned translator from the German, French, and Danish, and the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize, and, three times over, the Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation. She has translated Asterix, Hans Christian Andersen, Cornelia Funke, Kerstin Gier, W.G. Sebald, Sigmund Freud, and several novels by Stefan Zweig, includingConfusion and Journey into the Past, both available as New York Review Books Classics. She lives in the United Kingdom.

Winnie Gebhardt-Gayler (1929–2014) was a German illustrator who was a frequent collaborator with Otfried Preussler.