I literally couldn't get up off the sofa when I finished reading this book - it completely floored me, and for that reason I think it's worth putting into the hands of any older teen who can cope with the level of heartbreak and violence contained within its pages. The story has the reader in its grip right from its inncoent beginning, when three best friends, Max, Leo, and Elsa, celebrate a birthday together on a wonderful day out. Quickly, we clock that two of the children are Jewish, and one is not - and we already begin to see where the story is heading. Max, son of a driven and no-nonsense Nazi sympathiser, quickly has his future mapped out in the party, while Leo and Elsa face the oppression and persecution dealt down upon their families by the regime. Kessler manages to weave extreme tragedy and hope together in this heartwrenching tale, based on a true story - I defy any teen to come away from reading this book unmoved! It is the kind of story that shocks and horrifies at the same time as it teaches us how easy it is to end up on the wrong side of history. It really is a book that screams out 'never again' and makes it abundantly clear to readers, as we move ever further away from the horrors of World War Two, why and for whom was fought.