Imagine if everything you knew and took for granted about your life was just a facade, a mask to cover the real life you were being groomed for. In the new life, you would adopt a new identity, change your name and age, and fabricate a background peopled with strangers you’ve never met and experiences you’ve never had.

Suddenly, there are ten new rules to live by, including: #1 They will always be listening and often be watching, #3 Don’t call attention to yourself and #10 Notice everything! This is what 11-year-old Noah Keller must come to terms with quick-smart. He’s whisked away under a confusing cloud of secrecy from his home in Oasis, California to his new life in East Germany behind the Iron Curtain.

The year is 1989 and tensions are running high as an undercurrent of discontent builds towards a change (i.e. the coming down of the Berlin Wall). Noah and his parents are in the thick of it, and conceal their agenda for being there. For Noah – or Jonah, as he comes to be known – and his only friend Cloud-Claudia, decoding the cloaked messages and covert agendas at work around them is a dangerous game in which the stakes are high. These two friends are the changelings through which this historically significant story is told. It’s a work that is as clever, fresh and impressive as the young characters themselves, and will appeal to readers aged 10+.

Natalie Platten is the assistant manager and children’s book buyer at Readings Doncaster.