Goodbye Lenin for a younger audience

Goodbye Lenin for a younger audience. With important history.

A sad and sometimes scary tale, set at the very moment India splinters with Partition imminent in 1947, an important moment in world history.

One boy is both aware of what's going on around him but also fixed on his family - his father is dying. Bilal is 13 and decides that he will protect his much-loved parent from the pain and horror of their beloved country and people falling apart, by pretending all is well. To do this, he will need to call on his friends and even other people in the community to maintain their facade.

It's a touching proposition, and I enjoyed watching Bilal engage his elders and father's friends in his 'deceit', as well as watching his internal struggles.

A lot of the story also shows the effects on someone like Bilal - a boy with friends both Hindu and Muslim, a brother of someone engaged in the politics - making him a target, an observer watching his life and country fall apart and change around him.

There are some moments of violence/tension that do feel threatening. The history though is an important era for students and readers to be aware of, for the effect it's had ever since, the reverberations and similar experiences around the world.

Goodbye Lenin did this on film, with more comedy for European history. But for teen readers, this brings home the lived experience of a young person like them for whom 'home' and indeed family will never be the same again.

A well-read audiobook, smoothly portraying Bilal and his community.

For ages 11 and above.

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