Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner is a classic German children's novel. It was written in 1929. I had heard about it over the years some place, not sure where! But I saw it at a used book store recently and purchased it for a dollar. It was a quick read and a fun one though the fact that it is set in the late 1920s in Berlin cast a shadow over the whole story.
Emil is a young man (maybe 11 or 12?) who is traveling from his small town to Berlin to visit his grandmother and cousins. He hasn't been there for a while as he and his mother don't have a lot of money. His father has passed away and his mother works as a hairdresser in the living room of their apartment. Emil is a very smart and sweet young man, who is very attached to his mother. The grandmother is also rather poor and Emil's job is to bring seven pounds (money) to the grandmother. This money has taken a while to slowly save up. While on the train Emil falls asleep and is robbed. He knows who did it and desperately follows the man, getting lost in Berlin and not sure how he can rectify the situation. However, the code of boyhood and lots of helpful city boys come to the rescue.
The whole story is charmingly told.
I am currently reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and the idea of a bunch of boys banding together to fight crime in a city that was actually torn by violent political strife at the time (and which never enters the story) is an eerie and ironic reflection of what really went on with the storm troopers and the Hitler Youth.
Emil is a sweet young man and he'll be just old enough to be drafted into the Nazi army and go to war when the time comes.
The story is a fun and clever one. The author inserts himself into the plot as a reporter which was a fun touch.
I'm glad I read this book, I'd heard about it over the years. It's kind of an artifact of prewar Germany when perhaps people thought life was more innocent and simple.
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