Skateway to Freedom

by Ann Alma

Eleven-year-old Josie Grun escapes from Communist East Germany with her mother and father one dark night in 1989 just months before the Berlin Wall comes tumbling down. Braving border guards, barbed wire, and rifle shots, Josie reluctantly turns her back on her best friend, Greta, and all that was once familiar. She crosses the ocean to join her uncle in Calgary, attempts to learn a foreign language, and overcomes the prejudices of her schoolmates...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1550027190
• ISBN13: 9781550027198
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 12 to 15 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 10

Customer Reviews

A very nice book...

This was the first kind of "historical" book that took place ten or twenty years ago. Josie Grün is down in the dumps, since her parents have decided to move to Canada while their town in East Germany is in danger. Josie gradually makes friends, and is overjoyed when she can skate again. I liked this book, for the most part. The bad thing about it was that some parts were rather slow and uninteresting, and the plot and characters weren't very well-developed. The climax was when they were escaping from East Germany. However, it did portray a good image of what it would be like growing up in a society you knew nothing about.