Bee Sabeena has a fine old life. She spends her afternoons in her parents’ café where there’s always something on the go. She plays board games with Jockel, the café’s rhyming regular, and gets old Frau Almut – she with the bright purple lips and silver rings in her ears – to read the cards and tell her her fortune. And when
Berry Boy comes by for his rehearsal with Bee’s Mum and their band, she rushes into the kitchen to make Berry Boy his favourite drink, Toothpaste Juice, and decorates his forearm with her biro: she’s aiming to become a tatooist, after all.
The idyll suddenly falls apart, however, when Berry Boy learns that his young son has a heart defect and requires surgery. No one knows whether he will survive the operation…
by Michael Roher
- IBBY Honour List 2020
- Austrian Children’s Literature Award 2018
- 7 Best Books for Young Readers, December 2017
- Book of the Month, January 2018
- Children’s Book Prize Vienna, 2018
“The book is a declaration of love for life, friendship and happiness.” – Christian Kühn, Oldenbourg Children’s Book Fair
“This is truly fantastic and very quietly told!” – 7 Best Books
Luftschacht | 184 pp | 2017 | 12+
English sample translation – (c) Litrix
English summary and review on Litrix
[original title: Tintenblaue Kreise)