Sektion 20
by Paul Dowswell
Alex is an average teenager. Fed up with school, he’d rather be at home listening to music or playing his guitar. Fairly typical, except Alex is living in East Berlin during the Cold War and not playing the model student gets you noticed by the Stasi. It seems that anyone who fails to display open loyalty to the ruling party comes under suspicion and it isn’t long before people Alex knows start to disappear without explanation…
This is an exciting page turner, the tension building nicely to a thrilling finale. The stifling atmosphere and fear pervading people’s lives in post war East Berlin are intensely felt as people turn on each other in an attempt to remove themselves from scrutiny. The author has created a thoroughly absorbing story within a real historical setting to great effect, appealing to teenage readers across the board.
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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Paul Dowswell
After doing a History degree at Goldsmith’s College in London, Paul began working as a researcher for museums and publishers. Paul started writing at Time-Life in London then moved to Usborne to work as an editor and writer of children’s non-fiction. After eight years he went freelance, writing information books for everyone from the National Trust and Hodder & Stoughton, to Scholastic’s Literacy Time classroom material and Microsoft’s DVD Encarta encyclopedia. Paul started to write more narrative non-fiction with Usborne’s True Stories series which gave him the confidence to try his hand at fiction. This led directly to the Powder Monkey series with Bloomsbury.
Paul divides his life between Wolverhampton, Chester and London. He lives in Wolverhampton with his wife and daughter. Outside of work Paul teaches a course in writing children’s books at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham.
http://www.pauldowswell.co.uk
Photo: Usborne Publishing
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Reading Age: 10+
Interest level: 12+
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