I remember vividly my excitement on first reading [The Satanic Mill]. Preussler writes in two related veins: the more poetic one of [The Satanic Mill and The Adventures of Strong Vanya], and his comic fantasies for younger children. He also has a host of German imitators…. I am greatly attached to the works of Otfried Preussler, whose first book was the first book I ever translated, but some of his imitators do go on and on, for volume after volume of a series. Not so Preussler himself, who put a firm stop to the adventures of his Robber Hotzenplotz and other characters from the traditional German puppet play after three books, not by killing the robber off but by reforming him. Three books were just right, enough and not too much.

Anthea Bell, "Ten Years of Parcels," in Signal (copyright © 1980 The Thimble Press; reprinted by permission of The...