Review: To the Boy in Berlin by Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt

Today, in January Magazine’s children’s book section, contributing editor Sue Bursztynski reviews To the Boy in Berlin by Elizabeth Honey and Heike Brandt. Says Bursztynski :

Well-known Australian writer Elizabeth Honey here collaborates with her German translator to produce a very readable novel. To the Boy in Berlin is told entirely in e-mail and postcards, which proves to be an easily read format for reluctant readers, because you can put it down after each section.

A 13-year-old Australian girl named Henni spends a holiday in Cauldron Bay, a coastal town in Victoria, where she finds books and papers belonging to the Schmidts, a German family who lived there in 1914. Henni becomes fascinated with them, especially Leopold Schmidt, the son of the family, who was her own age at the time. Leaving a note for whoever comes next, she is pleasantly surprised to receive e-mail from Berlin, from a modern-day Leopold Schmidt. He’s no relation to the original, but he’s happy to become a penpal and to help her out in her research when she decides to do a school project on the 1914 Schmidt family, and what happened to them.

The full review is here.