Primeros reseñadoresHelen Grant

Bad Munstereiffel is small German town that ten-year-old Pia Kolvenbach inhabits with her younger brother, father, and British mother. Known as the girl whose grandmother blew up during Advent, Pia is ostracized from her classmates and regulated to being friends with the least popular boy in the school, StinkStefan, when the vanishings start. First it's Katharina Linden in her Snow White costume during Carnival, but as more and more girls Pia's age start to disappear, Pia wants to discover who is making these girls disappear.

The 'Vanishing of Katharina Linden' is an interesting read. I had checked out several reviews on Amazon before I had started it. Grant's book was likened to a fairy tale reminiscent of the Brother's Grimm with an even more evil twist. I definitely agree! It is a modern Hansel and Gretel told by two thirteen year-old German school children, who look for a killer of missing children. I admit that I had a hard time getting into the German sprinkled liberally throughout the book. Many of the words are common and I was half way through before I realized that there is a German glossary in the back of book! Enjoy the read, the second half picks up with rapidly.

Not since The Elegance of the Hedgehog has a book arrived in America from Europe on such wings of critical praise and popularity. The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is an unforgettable debut—at once chilling and endearing, haunting and richly insightful—the story of one girl’s big heart and even bigger imagination, and of a world full of mystery, good, and evil. It isn’t ten-year-old Pia’s fault that her grandmother dies in a freak accident. But tell that to the citizens of Pia’s little German hometown of Bad Münstereifel, or to the classmates who shun her. The only one who still wants to be her friend is StinkStefan, the most unpopular child in school. But then something else captures the community’s attention: the vanishing of Katharina Linden. Katharina was last seen on a float in a parade, dressed as Snow White. Then, like a character in a Grimm’s fairy tale, she disappears. But, this being real life, she doesn’t return. Pia and Stefan suspect that Katharina has been spirited away by the supernatural. Their investigation is inspired by the instructive—and cautionary—local legends told to them by their elderly friend Herr Schiller, tales such as that of Unshockable Hans, visited by witches in the form of cats, or of the knight whose son is doomed to hunt forever. Then another girl disappears, and Pia is plunged into a new and unnerving place, one far away from fairy tales—and perilously close to adulthood. Marvelously morbid, stunningly suspenseful, and exceptionally winning, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is a new coming-of-age classic, and the most accomplished fiction debut in years.