Cloud and Wallfish

Noah Keller's ordinary life ends on the afternoon his parents collect him from school and drive straight to the airport. On the way, they tell him that Noah is not his real name and that his birthday is not in March. He cannot demand an explanation, partly because of his severe stammer and partly because a new set of household rules forbids questions. The first rule is that they are always being listened to, and the second is that serious matters are never discussed indoors.

Now called Jonah Brown, Noah travels with his parents into East Berlin, on the far side of the Iron Curtain. The rules and secrets multiply faster than he can keep up with. He wonders who is listening and why, how his mother learned so many languages, and what became of the parents of Cloud-Claudia, the lonely girl who lives downstairs and is his only friend.

The story is full of espionage, intrigue, friendship, and family. Its central concern is the experience of being an outsider in a world that makes no sense to you. Anne Nesbet writes a middle-grade novel that uses this unsettling Cold War setting to explore history from a child's point of view.