How can you resist a book whose opening sentence is, "My life might have been so different, had I not been known as the girl whose grandmother exploded"? As it turns out, the "explosion" is only the first in a series of bizarre events that make up this witty, entertaining mystery story. I loved this book and can hardly wait till the author writes another one! It is told with a simplicity and elegance that many a much published best selling author could do well to study. Between the spiteful tongues, long standing family feuds, strange histories, and many more plot points, this story is just wonderful. Then girls start to disappear in the town. And the only adults who don't seem to have snake tongues in this town are her parents and a very kindly old man known as Heinrich Schiller (he changed his name because of a falling out with his brother) who tells the children wonderful ghost and fantastical stories.
Only StinkStephan, the other outcast at school, is willing to befriend her.
All her friends turn away (who wants to be friends with a girl who had a grandmother combust?). And, in a town filled with a knee-jerk tendency towards malice, gossip, and judgment, she becomes an outcast among the other kids. Her grandmother combusts at the annual Advent dinner. In the story, it is a dreadful year for little Pia. But it isn't a "children's book." This is a fine piece of literature that also happens to be a mystery.
This is a beautifully told story of a 10-year-old girl living in a small rural town in Germany in the year 1999.
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