Escape from East Berlin (Escape From #2)

Kids love these books.

My son asked for this and said it was an interesting and exciting story. He loved it

The story is told from two different time periods. The first part of the story is set in Berlin three months after the Berlin Wall has gone up. We meet two young men who are planning to swim the river to the west side to meet up with two girls. Unfortunately someone has informed on them and they are shot at. One is killed the other imprisoned. Two months later we meet the dead boy’s sister Marta. She hates those who shot her brother. It has pretty much destroyed her family. She knows they are constantly watched by the Stasi. When she overhears her cousin planning to escape to the West side things are set in motion. The second story is set in 1989. We meet Kurt Muller. His brother is a border guard and his grandfather is a high ranking official in the Stasi. Kurt’s parents were arrested and the grandfather arranged for them to be sent to the West. Both of their stories are held together with the grandfather in common. This story shows just a small part of what it was like to live on the East side of the Berlin Wall and want the freedom of the West. The book is full of fear, hope and dreams. There was a lot of research done in this book. At the end the author gives us the names of books he used to research for the writing of this book. Several of them I have already read. This is a quick read, but one you will want to slow down as you read.

I bought this through our children’s school. At first, they were like, “it’s one of Dad’s lame books… again!” Within two chapters they were asking, “are we reading our book tonight?” By time we hit chapter 8 they were glued liked an adult binge watching Netflix. This book was a nice way to introduce bigger conversations about the world, culture and Government. I’m sure it would have been fun without the Dad insight to the more historical events. I would recommend this book our kids loved it. It’s an easy read, our kiddos are in the 4th grade and didn’t struggle with it.

My son was unable to read many-many pages as the printing was smudged and entire paragraphs indecipherable.

Book was delivered on time but ripped. No time to return it as they needed it for school.