The Girl With the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke (Review)
DIVERSE READ: #Ownvoices Jewish MC* + Romani MC
Rating: ★★★★★
Genres: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Fantasy
Summary: When sixteen-year-old Ellie Baum accidentally time-travels via red balloon to 1988 East Berlin, she’s caught up in a conspiracy of history and magic. She meets members of an underground guild in East Berlin who use balloons and magic to help people escape over the Wall—but even to the balloon makers, Ellie’s time travel is a mystery. When it becomes clear that someone is using dark magic to change history, Ellie must risk everything—including her only way home—to stop the process.
My thoughts: The Girl With the Red Balloon is officially one of my favorite novels of 2017. I didn’t realize how much it would impact me, but it managed to find a place in my heart through its powerful message and heartwarming characters that I never wanted to stop reading about. This fantastic story follows 3 POVs*, two taking place during 1988 in East Berlin, and the other taking place during 1942 in a ghetto in Poland. Majority of this novel focuses around Ellie, who accidentally time travels back to East Berlin with the help of a magical red balloon, but it also follows a character living in a ghetto in Poland during WWII. Both narratives are so well written and deliver a powerful story showcasing the horrors of WWII and the equally troublesome times that followed after the war ended. More