The setting for A Great Escape is Berlin during the cold war just as the wall is going up and East and West are divided. The story begins on the day of the division. Barbed wire is put up all over the city and citizens are no longer allowed to travel between the two parts of the city. Peter has been left behind with his grandparents while his parents and sister are now on the other side.
Peter's whole focus is now on escape. He tries asking at the checkpoint but he is chased away. He sees a young couple who try to escape over the wall at the back of a cemetery. The young girl makes it over but her fiance is captured. Peter knows he cannot escape this way.
Now Peter is even more determined to leave. At midnight he quietly leaves the house he shares with his Oma and invalid Opa. He thinks he can swim across to the West but just as he is about to jump in the river he sees another young man with the same idea. He watches in horror as this man is shot by police who have quickly arrived in a patrol boat.
Things are very quiet on the East side of the wall. So quiet Peter notices every movement. A flock of pigeons wheel overhead. Peter follows them to the roof of a building. This building straddles the wall with half in the east and half in the west and it is set to be demolished. The pigeons he saw are homing pigeons and they are in the care of Otto, an apprentice carpenter, who has been forced to work on building the wall. Otto has a plan to fly to the West but he needs materials so he makes a promise to Peter that he can fly too.
The aspect of this book that I really appreciated, oddly, was the selfishness of Peter. Early on we meet Oma and Opa and it is easy to see they are struggling. Opa can no longer talk and needs assistance with every aspect of daily life. Now that Peter's parents are gone how will these elderly people get enough money for food? Peter, surely has to take some responsibility to help them. He is so fixed on leaving he cannot see that he actually needs to stay. I don't want to spoil the story but during the final scenes I did let out a huge sigh of relief.
A Great escape is the third book in a series by Felice Arena which focus on bravery and war time from the point of view of a young protagonist. The first was The Boy and and Spy set in Italy during WWII and the second Fearless Frederic set during the Paris floods of 1910. I think A Great Escape is the best one so far. I highly recommend this book for all young history fans. It is easy to read (only 156 pages) and the pace of the action means you just gallop through the story just as Peter himself races around Berlin desperate to escape and desperate to avoid capture. I read this whole book in one sitting. Perfect for age 9+. I was lucky to have an advance copy from my local bookshop. I read this book in January. This book will be published in early March 2019. I would follow A Great Escape with Oranges in No Man's Land by Elizabeth Laird and Honey Cake by Joan Betty Stuckner.
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