There’s genuine terror at the heart of this gripping political thriller. Life in East Berlin is fraught with tension: the Stasi are everywhere and you have to watch you words to stay safe. Teenager Alex knows all of that and he tries to behave as a perfect East German boy. But, Alex has a secret and he only has to make one small slip up and everything he cares about will collapse around him.
Alex lives in East Berlin. The cold war is raging and he and his family are forbidden to leave. But the longer he stays the more danger he is in.
Alex is no longer pretending to be a model East German, and the Stasi has noticed. They are watching him. Alex is told that further education will be blocked to him.
His summer job is mysteriously cancelled, and friends begin avoiding him. His parents start to realise that leaving the East may be the only option left to them, but getting across the Wall is practically impossible. And even if Alex and his family make it to the other side, will they be able to escape the reach of the Stasi?
This is a tense, page-turning thriller that builds towards a terrifying showdown as powerful forces from the East and West converge. One false move will change everything for Alex and his family, for ever.
'A great thriller with a poignant historical background ... A terrific book' - The Bookseller
Praise for Auslander:
'A breakthrough into the top league for Dowswell, a hugely impressive thriller set during the Second World War ... There will be many adults sneakily borrowing this from their children' - The Bookseller
'Auslander is a superlative, at times almost agonisingly compelling, piece of historical fiction ... The climactic escape to freedom is pure muck-sweat tension' - Financial Times
'Doswell is one of the best new writers of historical fiction for children ... [Auslander] steps outside the victim culture of novels such as those by Morris Gleitzman and comes close to classics such as The Silver Sword. Admirers of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas should look at this novel as a model of imaginative sympathy' - The Times
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.
Alex lives in East Berlin. The cold war is raging and he and his family are forbidden to leave.
Sektion 20 is aimed at readers aged 12 and over.
Sektion 20 features in the following genres: Young Adult Fiction, eBooks of the Month, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Recommendations
Paperback. Not Available.
Sektion 20 was written by Paul Dowswell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Sektion 20 has 264 pages
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