My Completely True and Not At All Embarrassing Diary – Written When I was Exactly Eleven and a Half Years Old
Meine total wahren und überhaupt nicht peinlichen Memoiren mit genau elfeinhalb

friedrich ani meine total wahren und ueberhaupt nicht peinlichen memoiren mit genau elfeinhalb
Hanser Verlag
March 2008 / 128pp
Children’s & Young Adults’

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review

Simon Kesselbeck is having a terrible week. First he has a nightmare in which he finds himself going up in the lift in the hotel where his mum works as a cook. But the lift doesn’t stop on the eighth floor, as it should. Instead it zooms out of the roof and becomes a train. Then, when he wakes up, he finds he has lost his voice: he can’t even manage a whisper or read out his essay at school. Could all this be due to the girl Annalena he fell madly in love with at the swimming pool? 

He falls into the pool, then crashes into a glass door. Then he bumps into Annalena again, and, oh bliss!, she stops and talks to him. But of course, being Simon, he doesn’t manage a reply. It is indeed a miracle, and little thanks to him, that all comes right in the end. 

The story is superbly written and is spilling over with irony and wit. The perfect read-aloud to younger children, and for an older age-group too. Friedrich Ani proves himself a man of many talents, as much at home in children’s literature as he is in detective novels. This one stands out for its warmth and genuine charm.

press quotes

‘German literature is fortunate to have Friedrich Ani …so controlled, so sensitive.’– Focus on Durch die Nacht, unbeirrt

about the author

Friedrich Ani was born in Kochel am See in 1959. He is a writer of novels, poetry, children’s books, screenplays and television scripts and lives in Munich.

Previous works include:
Durch die Nacht, unbeiirt (Hanser, 2000), Wie Licht schmeckt (Hanser, 2002); Das unsichtbare Herz (Hanser, 2005).

rights information

Carl Hanser Verlag
Vilshofener Str. 10
81679 Munich, Germany
Tel:+49 89 998 30 519
Email: brans@hanser.de
Contact: Anne Brans
www.hanser.de/kinderbuch

For more information on Carl Hanser Verlag please contact nbg.

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All recommendations from Spring 2008