I just finished reading "Going Over" by Beth Kephart which has just been released this month. "Going Over" is about two teens living in Berlin, Germany in the 1980's. Ada is almost 16 and lives in West Berlin. She has pink hair, works as a teacher in a preschool at St. Thomas Church and sprays graffiti on the Berlin Wall at night. Stefan is 18 and lives in East Germany. He works at the Eisfabrik which is the local ice house and spends his free time on his balcony staring into his telescope at the stars and looking for Ada on the other side. Ada keeps pressuring Stefan to defect, but he knows it is too dangerous. His own grandfather tried to escape and never came home. The dangers are very real, but so is his love for Ada and who would take care of his grandmother?
"Going Over" was a rather tough read. It is written in both Ada and Stefan's perspectives and jumps around a lot. There is also a lot of reference to German places and words and a history that not too many teens know about. I've attached a help page to this blog for help with this book. Please be patient with the help page. I was using a lot of pages that were translated over from German and some weren't all that clear.
Bottom line, I did enjoy the book and it did bring some interest in a part of history that I haven't really studied. It gave a good look at life at that time and you know what?...that time wasn't too long ago. I would recommend this book as a "get-around" read and not really a "have to".
Going Over
By Beth Kephart
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