Magellan Ahoy! – Our History
Magellan is based in Bamberg, the Bavarian World Cultural Heritage Site famous for its breweries and beers and, thanks to us, also known for beautifully designed children’s, young adult and new adult books and games.
Since he founded Magellan in December 2012, management director Ralf Rebscher navigates the whale across the sea of books – far-sighted and sometimes venturous, just like the name giver Ferdinand Magellan.
About one and a half years after the foundation, in July 2014, the first Magellan books were finally published. Part of our first programme: the picture book Ferdinand auf großer Fahrt (Ferdinand’s Big Journey), which was translated into Chinese and has sold more than 190,000 copies worldwide.
In January 2015, author Suza Kolb’s two Shetland ponies Choccie and Biscuit galloped onto the scene: Die Haferhorde (The Oat Crew) with over 20 volumes published and translated into nine languages has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide, which makes it our most successful children’s book series.
In 2016, games joined Magellan’s programme, including memo and card games for the youngest as well as board games and puzzles for the whole family. Magellan also is the home of the games to the famous book series Woodwalkers and the road gaming sets My Roads®.
Since 2016, Magellan is the German home of Rachel Bright and Jim Field’s success series The Lion Inside. By 2026, the duo has sold over 2 million copies in Germany.
In July 2020, we launched our non-fiction programme, which encourages children between the ages of 2 and 9 years to understand the beauty of our world and the importance of nature and wildlife protection.
In addition to our books for younger readers, we also publish Young Adult and occasionally New Adult books. Our titles feature relevant topics such as mental health, diversity, coming-of-age, or environmentalism as well as fantastical elements and heartfelt love stories.
Several of our titles have been nominated or won prizes and awards. In 2017, for example, Mario Fesler won the German Children’s Literature Award “Young Talents” with his book Lizzy Carbon und der Klub der Verlierer (Lizzy Carbon and the Loosers’ Club).
Some of our international stars include the look-and-find board book series The Colourful World by Nastja Holtfreter, which was translated into 13 languages and sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide as well as the lovely Christmas titles Ein heimlicher Weihnachtsgast (An Unexpected Christmas Guest), Der überraschende Weihnachtsbrief (The Unforseen Christmas Letter), and Ein wunderbares Weihnachtslied (A Marvellous Christmas Song) by Annette Amrhein and Sabine Straub. Their books were also translated into 10 languages and sold more than 150,000 copies worldwide. In general, our whale has travelled far and our titles sold to 36 countries and were translated into 32 languages.
To make all of this happen, a crew of twenty-five busy bees is working with great pleasure and motivation. Why? Because we believe in innovation and design; we believe in great stories for young readers and – most of all – we believe in the future of our planet!
Discover Magellan!
June 2026