![]() ![]() Mike's crazy about Tatiana, a girl in his class, but is one of the few classmates who doesn't get invited to her party. At home, he has to deal with an alcoholic mother and a father who appears to be having a rather obvious affair. At school he is aloof and seemingly disconnected. From the outset, it is clear that Mike is a square peg in a round hole. The story seems a simple one – two 14-year-olds sort of borrow a car – but the execution is beautiful. Its American stoops and faucets and pants for trousers mixed with euros and kilometres-an-hour make for an interesting hybrid. Tim Mohr has done an excellent job with Why We Took the Car. Fellow German Cornelia Funke aside, I am hard-pressed to think of other contemporary foreign children's authors available in English (though I know the Pushkin imprint is trying to redress this). The lack of translated children's (in this case Young Adult) fiction is our loss. ![]() I have been irregularly reviewing children's books for the Guardian for more than 10 years and, if memory serves – with the exception of Tove Jansson's Moomin books – this is the first book I've read in translation for review. ![]()
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