Westfallen

LoveReading4Kids Says

“When this started, we were regular seventh graders, living in a regular town in suburban New Jersey, worrying about the regular dumb stuff”. So shares Alice, one of the six kids who stars in Ann and Ben Brashares’ Westfallen — a gripping thriller that sees two sets of 12- year-olds communicate through a radio and wind up sharing a dialogue (and a Mars bar!) between 1944 and 2023.

While still reeling with shock (“When the world has shifted on its axis, and you’ve just watched reality turn to gobbledygook, it’s hard to sit down and eat dinner”), the kids are excited about their counterparts’ daily lives. For example, the kids of 1944 are blown away by this thing called Google, while the 2023-ers use Google-sourced information to help stop a sweet shop from burning down in 1944.

Trouble is, while meddling in historic events might prevent short-term problems, and even halt destruction and death, the ricocheting longer-term repercussions of the butterfly effect could be catastrophic, as turns out to be the case here, when the kids’ actions lead to the Nazis winning the war. Somewhat more high stakes than Back to the Future.

The pace and page-turning pull ramp up further still as both sets of kids embark on a courageous race against time to halt an atrocious course of history. Propelled by peril and urgency, Westfallen is also often funny, thanks to the splendid cast of characters and their wildly inventive action movie-inspired scheming to put things right, and to be on the right side of history.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Westfallen

We didn't mean to change the past. Now we have to win the war. A stunning 'what if?' story by a bestselling author about two groups of 12-year-olds - one in World War Two, one in the present day.

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