History comes home in a deeply moving, exquisitely illustrated tale of
a small house, taken by the Nazis, that harbors a succession of
families--and becomes a quiet witness to a tumultuous century.
The days went around like a wheel.
The sun rose, warming the walls of the house.
On the outskirts of Berlin, Germany, a wooden cottage stands on the
shore of a lake. Over the course of a hundred years, this little house
played host to a kind Jewish doctor and his family, a successful Nazi
composer, wartime refugees, and a secret-police informant. During that
time, as a world war came and went and the Berlin Wall arose just a
stone's throw from the back door, the house filled up with myriad
everyday moments. And when that time was over, and the dwelling was
empty and derelict, the great-grandson of the man who built the house
felt compelled to bring it back to life and listen to the story it had
to tell. Illuminated by Britta Teckentrup's magnificent illustrations,
Thomas Harding's narration reads like a haunting fairy tale--a lyrical
picture-book rendering of the story he first shared in an acclaimed
personal history for adult readers.