Auslander | TheBookSeekers

Auslander


School year: Lower 6th, Upper 6th, Year 10, Year 11, Year 9

No. of pages 304

Published: 2010

Great for age 6-18 years

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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.

 

 

This book is the winner of numerous awards

This book has been graded for interest at 12-18 years.

There are 304 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC .

Paul Dowswell trained as a historian and teacher. He is now a freelance writer and editor.

 

This book has been nominated for the following awards:

Independent Booksellers Award - Children's Book Of the Year
This book was recognised in the Children's Book of the Year category by the Independent Booksellers Award.

Booktrust Book Awards - Teen
This book was recognised in the Teen category of the Booktrust Book Awards . The Book Trust Book Awards aim to unearth the very best childrens books the UK has to offer, and to honour authors and illustrators who continue Britains proud heritage of storytelling. Heritage catgeoires include: Blue Peter Book Awards, Booktrust Best New Illustrators Award, Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Booktrust Best Book Awards (with Amazon Kindle). Current categories include: Storytime Prize, Lifetime Achievement Aawrd, Children's Laureate.

'Auslander is a superlative, at times almost agonisingly compelling, piece of historical fiction ... The climactic escape to freedom is pure muck-sweat tension' The Financial Times 'An exceptional novel, persuasive in its details, with an utterly compelling story and powerful message' Waterstones Books Quarterly '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 '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