**In 1960s Czechoslovakia, Patrik participates in and rebels against the communist regime, knowing that anyone could become an enemy in the blink of an eye.**

Fourteen-year-old Patrik rebels against the communist regime in small ways whenever he gets the chance: spray-painting slogans, listening to contraband Beatles records, even urinating on a statue of Lenin under cover of night. But anti-Party sentiment is risky, and when party interference cuts a little too close to home, Patrik and his family find themselves faced with a decision — and a grave secret — that will change everything. As the moments tick toward too late, Patrik takes his family’s fate in hand, risking everything for a chance at freedom. Examining the psychological toll of living under an authoritarian regime, Carolyn Marsden allows readers to experience both Patrik’s persistent worry and his hope for better things.

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### From School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-Patrik Chrobak, 14, and his upper-middle-class family do not toe the (Communist) Party line in 1960s Czechoslovakia. Increasingly frustrated by the Party's oppressive tactics and methods, Patrik's father and mother talk more of fleeing their homeland. Patrik, unable to stomach watching friends and teachers vanish for "disloyalty," begins committing subversive pranks with like-minded, longtime friends. One of them is 14-year-old Danika, his upstairs neighbor. Patrik realizes that he wants to be more than just friends, which bewilders Danika. Instead, she falls for the new boy in town, a loyal Party member. This angers Patrik, who commits a brazen protest against the government. Caught and ordered to relocate as punishment, he and his family decide to escape. With many unknowns ahead, knowing only that the immediate future is unbearable, the family flees. The description of their escape to Italy is confusing. Some of it is written as flashback, some as a bizarre dream sequence, and some as realistic events. The overall story is excellent, conveying feelings of dread, suspicion, despair, and frustration experienced by citizens in Communist Eastern Europe. The relationships among Patrik and his friends and family are realistic and genuine. This novel will open some eyes about how difficult and unfair life was in the Eastern Bloc.-Lisa Crandall, Capital Area District Library, Holt, MIα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

### From Booklist

Living in Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, Patrik dreams of escaping to America. In the meantime, he perpetrates small acts of rebellion against the state: defacing a patriotic slogan on his school’s wall, urinating on a statue of Lenin, listening to a forbidden Beatles record, etc. But when Danika, the girl he loves, begins dating the son of a party official, a furious Patrik escalates his pranks, with possibly disastrous consequences for himself and his family. In her novel, inspired by a true story, Marsden, the author of many multicultural titles, does an excellent job of creating the claustrophobic sense of fear that pervaded life in Soviet-ruled countries during the ’60s, a time and place where no one could be trusted and everyone, it seemed, was under surveillance, even a schoolboy like Patrik. Marsden’s carefully researched and engrossing story will be of obvious classroom use but will also appeal to thoughtful independent readers. Grades 5-8. --Michael Cart