Calypso's odyssey

The most boring vacation ever? Not at all!

Four weeks of sailing in the Mediterranean with his parents: Oscar loses interest by the third day. But then they fish out two completely exhausted children from the water in a life ring. They are Nala and her little brother Moh, who fell from a refugee boat. Thus begins an odyssey from country to country: the children are not allowed to disembark anywhere. And the longer the journey lasts, the more they befriend Oscar. Eventually, he can’t even imagine leaving them behind in some refugee camp, as his parents had planned.

When strangers become friends. For many years, we have been receiving images and news about the unimaginable plight of refugees in the Mediterranean. It is not easy to convey to children what these people endure and why they are often not helped. This book assists in doing so by giving a face and a voice to the refugees, making their suffering comprehensible, and consistently telling the story from a child’s perspective.

Despite the serious background, "Calypsos Irrfahrt" is also a touching story of friendship and a turbulent adventure. A valuable book in many respects, it is recommended as school reading due to its mix of entertainment and topical relevance - awarded the Hamburg Literature Prize and the Friedrich-Glauser Prize.