"The incredible story of how a house was witness to German history" Telegraph"A touching picturebook which shows children that large events can have repercussions even in small and unheralded places" Wall Street Journal
A beautiful picture-book adaptation of Thomas Harding's Costa-shortlisted biography for adults, exquisitely illustrated by Britta Teckentrup. On the outskirts of Berlin, a wooden cottage stands on the shore of a lake. Over the course of a century, this little house played host to a loving Jewish family, a renowned Nazi composer, wartime refugees and a Stasi informant; in that time, a world war came and went, and the Berlin Wall was built a stone's throw from the cottage's back door.
Thomas Harding first shared this remarkable story in his Costa-shortlisted biography The House by the Lake - now he has rendered it into a deeply moving picture-book for young readers. With words that read like a haunting fairy-tale, and magnificent artwork by Britta Teckentrup, this is the astonishing true story of the house by the lake.
"A superb portrait of twentieth century Germany seen through the prism of a house which was lived in, and lost, by five different families. A remarkable book." - Tom Holland
"A book that will stay with me for a very long time." - Rachel Joyce