Dark Hours

Author(s): Gudrun Pausewang

Fiction - YA

This work tells a gripping and moving war story set during the last weeks of the Second World War. Gisela, almost 16, is trapped with her brothers for days beneath the rubble after the bombing of Dresden. It is February 1945, in Lower Silesia and Gisela's family is fleeing from the Russian army. They make it to a train station not far from Dresden, but during the journey, Gisela is separated from her pregnant mother. In the hopelessly crowded station, the air raid siren goes off and Gisela loses sight of her grandmother, all their belongings and one of her younger brothers. They survive the air raid, but then realise they are trapped underground with hardly any food or water...


Product Information

'...compulsively readable, celebrating courage, endurance and the final victory of hope, this is children's anti-war fiction at its finest.' The Independent(UK) 8 December 2006'...engrossing story of courage, ingenuity and family unity. Without being heavy handed, enlightening snippets of the political realities of daily life in Germany under Hitler's regime are interwoven into Gisel's musings...This is an interesting and exciting story suitable for readers in upper primary and middle-school.'Magpies5 November 2006

Gudrun Pausewang is Germany's leading writer for teenagers. She deals with political issues and is an activist herself, passionately committed to the struggle for human rights and a better world. John Brownjohn is one of Britain's foremost translators from French and German. His work has won numerous awards on both sides of the Atlantic, including the US PEN Prize, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize, and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize on three occasions. He has been much praised for his deft and elegant use of language: 'seamless and idiomatic, without a single clumsy construction, It's a remarkable achievement to sustain a breakneck pace and never once sound as if the book were written in anything other than English.' John is the translator of Lilli Thal's Mimus, recently published by Allen & Unwin.

General Fields

  • : 9781741149210
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : 0.212
  • : October 2006
  • : 195mm X 131mm X 18mm
  • : Australia
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Gudrun Pausewang
  • : Paperback
  • : 1
  • : 833.914
  • : very good
  • : 216
  • : b&w photos