Thomas Brezina

For his 50th birthday he took a children's sponsorship for Light for the World and he is currently engaged as a testimonial for Austrian NGO Volkshilfe.

Thomas C. Brezina (born 30 January 1963) is an Austrian writer of children's books and TV-Presenter.

He is especially known for his series, The Knickerbocker Gang, A Case for You and the Tiger-Team and his stories about the talking bike Tom Turbo, as well as for hosting the children's television series Am Dam Des.

He has published over 550 books and his work has been translated into 35 languages.

Brezina was born in Vienna.

During his school days Brezina began writing and received the “Grand Austrian Youth Prize” for his screenplays for the TV-puppet-show “Tim, Tom and Dominik”.

Subsequently, he worked as a puppeteer at Arminio Rothstein, better known as Clown Habakkuk in Austria, and played the magician Tintifax among others.

Brezina wrote bedtime stories and radio plays and finally began working as an assistant director for shows such as Am Dam Des, a children's program by Austrian national public service broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF).

Subsequently, Brezina became a staffer at ORF as editor, director and eventually presenter for children's and youth programs.

His breakthrough as a writer occurred in 1990 with the series The Knickerbocker Gang.

Three years later the book series Tom Turbo followed – a detective-series about the “world’s smartest bicycle” – which was later adapted for TV as an interactive children's program.

His first series was The Knickerbocker Gang in 1990 – detective stories about a gang of four kids solving mysteries with brains.

The series was also made into a musical, a play, a movie and a television series in 1995 and 1996.

Three years later Brezina created Tom Turbo, the "coolest bike in the world", whose book series and interactive television format is running for 20 years since then.

The Tom Turbo stories concern a talking bicycle capable of 111 amazing stunts.

Together with his two friends, Caro and Claro, and his boss, Thomas Brezina, the bicycle solves mysteries.

His main enemy is the purple-clad wannabe supervillain Fritz Fantom.

Other book series followed, such as ''No Boys!

– Witches Only, Pssst!

Our Secret!

or Seven Paws for Penny''.

The heroine of the Penny books lives on a farm and, in the series' first title (What is a dog's life, after all?), saves a dog from being killed.

The "seven paws" of the title refers to Penny's dogs; one has four white paws and one has three white paws and a black one.

His adventure-series A Case for You and the Tiger-Team was a big international success, particularly in China, where the series overtook Harry Potter in terms of sales numbers at certain points.

The books by Brezina also spawned movies and television-series (for example The Knickerbocker Gang: The talking tomb and Tom Turbo – From 0 to 111), theatre-plays, musicals (for example Ritter Rups und der Pirat Kartoffelsalat (Knight Rups and captain Potato Salad)), radio plays and interactive videogames.

Furthermore, he was involved in the conception of textbooks for schools, wrote and presented a number of educational videos about famous composers and wrote an interactive series of art books for children (Museum of Adventures).

The series A MINI-Case for You and the Tiger-Team (an adaptation of the Tiger-Team adventures for younger readers) and Liz Kiss (a story about a girl becoming a ninja-superheroine) are his latest new works in the field of children's books.

As an author, producer or presenter, Brezina was involved in over 40 TV series and shows for children.

His shows, programs and series are mainly featured on Austrian national television broadcaster ORF, but also internationally on TV Educasi, Al Jaazera Children, Arte, DaVinci Learning, Nick, Sat.1 and SuperRTL.

For years Brezina wrote the screenplays for the Austrian TV series Helmi, an educational program for kids, which explains dangers and precautions of traffic.

He also invented the character of the dog Sokrates, the somewhat clumsy companion of Helmi.

Starting as a presenter, Brezina hosted a variety of interactive TV shows and series for the children's program of ORF, including Am Dam Des, Die Rätselburg (Quiz Castle), Drachenschatz (Dragon's Treasure) and Forscherexpress (Researcher's Express).

Privately he engages in charities for disadvantaged children and became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Austria in 1996.

Since 2008 Brezina is responsible for the children's program okidoki, broadcast on ORF eins.

Brezina has received numerous awards for his work, including the “Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria” and the most important Austrian TV award Romy for the educational program Forscherexpress (“Researcher’s Express”).

Brezina lives in Vienna and London.

He came out as gay and has been married to Ivo Belajic, a Croatian painter, since 2017.

Overall Brezina wrote more than 550 books, some of which have been translated into more than 35 languages.

With about 40 million sold copies, he is one of the most successful German-language children's and youth book authors.

Through his work on a variety of screenplays, Brezina got an offer to write books from German-based Breitschopf-Verlag.