AVIVA-BERLIN.de im November 2024 - Beitrag vom 30.01.2006


Prince William, Maximilian Minsky and Me
Jennifer Gallagher

A girl´s first crush leads to discoveries about life, loss, love, and loyalty. This funny, poignant, award-winning novel set in modern Berlin by Holly-Jane Rahlens is now in English

Nelly Sue Edelmeister is a skinny thirteen-year-old Berlin schoolgirl with thick glasses and a brain the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And she‘s going to be a brilliant astronomer. Yes, she knows who she is - a nerd! She definitely isn´t interested in boys. That is until she gets a crush on the handsome and newly-bereaved Prince William, future king of Great Britain. There´s only one way to meet her heartthrob - she has to get on her school´s basket team who are about to go to Eaton, Eaton and fall into his arms. There are two problems, Nelly is a klutz and can´t keep a basketball in her hands even when she´s standing still. And there´s just a week to go before the team chooses who´s in. There´s just one hope - Maximilian Minsky, former New Yorker and basketball ace. He´s definitely odd, looks like a vampire, but perhaps he can get her in shape...

Meanwhile, there´s pressure at home. Nelly´s mother is pushing her to do the bat mitzvah thing, and her parents are bickering day and night. Only no-nonsense Risa, their beloved, elderly family friend, a survivor of Germany´s darker past, seems to be the only one in the house who keeps Nelly sane.

Three years after its first German edition and two years after winning the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for the best teen-read fictional novel in Germany, "Prince William, Maximillian Minsky and me" has now finally hit American bookstores in its original English.

If you´re looking for a great read for kids, their parents, your parents and you (yes, even you were 13 years old once), then Holly-Jane Rahlens´ book "Prince William, Maximillian Minsky and me" is it. Holly-Jane Rahlens has captured adolescent angst and infatuation, family tensions, and the experience of being Jewish in contemporary Berlin with uncanny insight. This book paints a hilarious and moving portrait of a determined heroine posed to charm teen and older readers everywhere!

Prince William, Maximillian Minsky, and Me
By Holly-Jane Rahlens
Candlewick Press 2005 published by arrangement with Rowohlt Verlag GmbH
ISBN 0-7636-2704-6
Recommended for children between 12 to 16 years old
Price: 13,40 Euro
ISBN: 0763627046
EAN: 9780763627041
This book can be ordered at