The Robber and ME

A young orphan boy finds a wonderful new home but must decide where his loyalties lie after he hears talk of robberies made by someone resembling the mysterious man who saved him from the cold, dark forest and brought him to Uncle Emil's. Reprint.

"I was often afraid," says young Boniface Schroll, the protagonist of Josef Holub's prize-winning novel set in 19th-century Germany. "Sometimes I was afraid of tomorrow, or afraid that I would do something wrong." A city boy and orphan with a funny name and a head of girlish ringlets, Boniface is confronted by those fears when he is sent from the house of a stingy aunt to live with his uncle, the stern but decent mayor of the village of Graab.

Here he sleeps under a thick down comforter and is fattened up and fussed over by his uncle's kindly, maternal maid, Frederika. Nevertheless, he soon realizes that life in Graab is restricted by stifling rules that keep the kids in line at school and the townspeople orderly and fearful of strangers. When Boniface becomes friends with the son of a reputed robber, he fully realizes the small-minded prejudices that oppress the village and becomes entangled in a local mystery. In the end he must risk his comfortable new life in order to tell the truth.

This engaging historical novel, translated from German, won the 1998 Mildred R. Batchelder Award for excellence in children's literature. Older readers will enjoy the fascinating window into life in old-time, small-town Germany, with a short glossary of German and archaic words at the end. An old-fashioned mystery, The Robber and Me is a refreshing change of pace in middle-grade fiction. (Ages 11 and older) --Maria Dolan