Karo's dad is dead - or so she believes - and when a stranger comes to the door one day looking for her mum, Karo wants nothing to do with this man.

But Karo's mother won't see sense. She starts to spend more and more time with this strange man from her past, and can't see how unhappy it is all making her daughter. Karo squabbles with her friend, starts to skip school, she even runs away to her grandfather, but nothing she can do seems to have any effect on her changing family.

Set in Hamburg after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is a story of how international events can affect the everyday lives of ordinary families.

This book was recognised in the Translation category by the Ibby Awards.

There are 145 pages in this book. This book was published 2010 by Little Island .

Renate Ahrens was born in Germany in 1955. After some years working as a teacher, she moved to Dublin in 1986 with her husband and has since worked as a freelance author. As well as children's and adult books, she has written stage and radio plays and scripts for children's television programmes, and her books for children and adults have been translated into other languages. Over the Wall (published in German under the title Die Welt steht Kopf) is her first children's book to be published in Ireland, where she now lives. Siobhan Parkinson is one of Ireland's leading authors for children and teenagers, and she has won numerous awards for her writing. Siobhan lives in Dublin with her husband and grown-up son.