Shortlisted for the prestigious Teenage Book of the Year Award 2009.
A tense and dramatic story of growing up in Berlin during World War Two. When Piotr’s parents are killed he is taking to an orphanage in Warsaw. But Piotr is a ‘volksdeutscher’ – of German blood with the result that he is adopted by a German family and taken to live at the heart of the Nazi power, in Berlin. How Piotr becomes Peter and adapts to the new life and particularly how he discovers that behind the apparent adulation of Hitler there are many dissenters taking great risks is a thrilling story which also offers fascinating insight into the lives of young Germans during the Second World War.
Titles on this year’s Teenage Book of the Year Award shortlist include:
When Peter's parents are killed, he is sent to an orphanage in Warsaw. Then German soldiers take him away to be measured and assessed. They decide that Peter is racially valuable.
He is Volksdeutscher: of German blood. With his blond hair, blue eyes, and acceptably proportioned head, he looks just like the boy on the Hitler-Jugend poster. Someone important will want to adopt Peter.
They do. Professor Kaltenbach is very pleased to welcome such a fine Aryan specimen to his household. People will be envious.
But Peter is not quite the specimen they think. He is forming his own ideas about what he is seeing, what he is told. Peter doesn't want to be a Nazi, and so he is going to take a very dangerous risk.
The most dangerous risk he could possibly choose to take in Berlin in 1942.
'It seems as if the world of children's fiction is about to get a whole new jolt of life.' Big Issue
'Paul Dowswell has the ability to tell a rattling good story and, at the same time, give the readers a feel for what life must have been like at the time.' Historical Books Review
'One hopes he [Paul Dowswell] settles in for the long haul.' Daily Telegraph
Author
About Paul Dowswell
Paul Dowswell has worked in publishing for over twenty years. He went freelance
in 1999 after eight years with Usborne, where he was a senior editor.
Before that he worked for Time-Life, BBC Books, the Science Museum and
the National Sound Archive.
History is his specialist subject
but he also enjoys writing about natural history, science, geography,
in fact almost anything, apart from golf and mechanical engineering. He
has a shamefully encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music, and have
recently begun presenting occasional music programmes on local radio
station WCR 101.8 FM.
He has written over 60 books for UK
publishers. Most of them have been published in the United States,
Commonwealth countries, Europe and elsewhere.
