To the Boy in Berlin by Elizabeth Honey & Heike Brandt
I will admit that it has been a while since I read this book, but I remember it as delightful, funny but with a gentle edge.
But to start the story in the middle. Boy in Berlin is a sequel to the Ballad of Cauldron Bay. While on holidays there Henni was fascinated by the family that had built the holiday house, so she left a letter to Leo Schmidt, the builder who lived during World War 1. Imagine her surprise when, six months later, Henni gets a letter from Leo Schmidt who lives in Germany. How, when and all that background stuff is gradually revealed as the story is told.
Henni and Leo together decide to try and solve the mystery of what happened to the Schmidt family back then, and set up a north-south email correspondence. This book is a collection of that correspondence about the Schmidt family, Leo’s friend Mustafa and his problems as well as Henni’s friends, family and everything elso. (Henni does not keep secrets.)
Those readers who are familiar with Elizabeth Honey’s work will greatly enjoy this book. Unfortunately I am not a fan, finding her writing too juvenile for lower secondary. However this book is different because alternate chapters are written by Heike Brandt. Heike treats her readers with some respect for their intelligence and taps into that fierce sense of injustice that many early adolescents have. The story of Mustafa is designed to make the reader angry, and it works.
A most enjoyable read.
