English pages about Thomas Brezina

The world of Thomas Brezina
The story of success

He is thought of as one of the most successful authors of children’s books in German speaking countries.

With his book series, “Die Knickerbocker-Bande”, “Penny”, “No Jungs” or “Tiger-Team”, he has created worlds for young readers, which fascinates and challenges them, and where they can identify themselves.

He is an author of enormous creativity and a guarantor of success: Thomas Brezina was born in 1963, in Vienna, Austria, has written more than 400 books for 13 books series. In 92% of all Austrian households with kids aged 6-12 you’ll find books written by him*. 88% of all Kids in Austria are familiar with Thomas Brezina*. 73% of all 6-12 year olds read his books. *
In Germany he is better known than famed children’s books author Michael Ende**.

His books have been translated into 32 languages from English to Japanese and i.e., in 2001; in Slovakia he was the most successful foreign author. Additionally, in China books have been sold more than 7 million copies within one year and made him in 2003 the most successful foreign author in China. Topical: In the Chinese Bestsellinglist for January and February 2005 Books written by Thomas Brezina are on Top of the list – 5 titel in the Top-Ten-List!

Thomas Brezina is the author of international bestsellers and a storyteller of a special quality. Thomas Brezina wants to write stories but not essays, nor epics. He defines himself as a storyteller in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. He pushes the action forward and, therefore, the stories are always exciting and adventurous. Immediately, from the first page on, his young readers are engrossed - full of curiosity about how the story will evolve. This is one example of how Brezina makes children into readers. Additionally, he achieves an important media-pedagogical contribution.

One who has the rare gift of creating stories has the potential for success in every medium. The enormous versatility of the author has brought successive, numerous distinctions in many categories i.e., he has also been a script author for children’s TV-Series and movies:

The TV-Production for “Tom Turbo-Die heiße Spur” had received TV awards in 1996 and 1999, at the New York Festival. He has translated several TV-animation series, has written about 350 radio dramas, scripted plays and musicals, and very often he is before the audience as an actor or presenter.
The movie “Das sprechende Grab” (1995), which was based on Thomas Brezina’s, book series “Die Knickerbocker-Bande”, won two first prizes at the international children’s movie festivals in Antwerp and Rio de Janeiro. Also, this movie broke all Austrian “viewing records”.

Similarly successful was the TV-Series “Die Knickerbocker-Bande”, which was aired in 1997 on PRO7 and ORF.
In 2004 Thomas Brezina was honoured the most prestigious TV-award “ROMY” for his new science-half hour-programm for children (“Forscherexpress”/”Explorerexpress”). The weekly programm is aired on ORF.

His stories have been adapted for theatre, musicals as audio books, and for CD-ROMS.

He is also pedagogically versatile i.e., out of 20 different textbooks for physics and chemistry, in the Austrian school system, the ones that Thomas Brezina designed for and assisted in developing are the second most used.

Since 1996 he has been the official ambassador for UNICEF-Austria. Thomas Brezina, as other UNICEF-ambassadors such as Peter Ustinov or Roger Moore, has the concern to help underprivileged children, all over the world, gain better living and quality of life.
Besides that Thomas Brezina is the honorary citizen of Disneyland, Paris.
From this uncompromising position as a defender of the rights of children, he writes his books – and so reaches the nerve centre of his demanding audience.
Thomas Brezina shows us a world in which children are powerful and autonomous, and look forward with self-confidence towards the future.

*IFES-Institut (Institute for Empirical Social Research), Austria’s largest institute for opinion research; the polling was done in 1998 under a representative population of inhabitants. This group comprised 2000 people, aged 15 years and up. These households have at least one child aged 6-14.

**Eye-research – Marketing Research Institute (Source, 1000 Kids aged 7-13, 2001)

The story of success
∑ In 92% of all Austrian households, there are books written by Thomas Brezina*
∑ According to market research on a scale of 1 to 5(1 being the highest) he is rated 1, 6 (“outstanding, this demonstrates a really and continuous enthusiasm”)*
∑ In Austria he is by far the most well known author (88%)*
∑ In a spontaneous survey Thomas Brezina is, in Germany, more well known than author Michael Ende!**
∑ In China, he is the most successful foreign author in 2003. (“… Superstar in China …”/DER STANDARD, 23.9.03)

*IFES-Institut (Institute for empirical social research), Austria’s largest institute for opinion research; the polling was done in 1998 under a representative population of inhabitants. This group was 2000 people, aged 15 years up. In these households lives at least one child aged 6-14

**Eye-research – Marketing Research Institute (Source, 1000 Kids aged 7-13, 2001)

Press Comments:

“Thomas Brezina knows what Kids like”/Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“Thomas Brezina guarantees success”/Süddt. Zeitung

“Superstar in China”/Der Standard

“Author of exception”/Main-Echo

“Thomas Brezina writes one bestseller after another”/WAZ

“Man of records”/Kurier

“Rat catcher of readers”/profil

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