MOOC The future of storytelling - Creative Task 1

The book "Zwielicht" von Marianne Posselt (1986)

The story I remember the most is a book that I read when I was around 14 or 15 years old. It is about a girl, 14/15 years old who is living with her mother and 2 siblings in poor surroundings. She is trying to help and works at night for little money in a factory. But something happened, I cannot remember what, and she lost the job. She can not tell it her family. So she strolls around over the night so that it seems everything is ok. In this night times she connect to some boys, just two or three years older than her, which are building a gang. In this gang she finds a real good friend and someone whom she fells in love with. The problem is that at the beginning the boys think that she is a guy also because she is dressed liked one. Sie is also wearing a cap to hide her hair. But soon some of the boys are realizing that she is a girl. They decide to hide the secret because the gangleader would be not amused and would punish her hard. He is a very violent guy. 

The gang has a place where they come together in the night, some alos at day when they have no other place. In such dark and poor place starts a very tenderly lovestory between the girl and a guy who sees this gang as his family. He also has to care for a younger brother which is also hanging around the place. But then things turn bad. The gang is involved in robbery. Until now the robberies were small ones where no people were hurt. But now the leader changes the targets to get more money. This involves weapons. The gang starts to divide. Some of the gang do not want to that way. 

In the end after a big and violent break-in the gang breaks down. Not only because the police is after them, also it changes too much. The girl has no real chance to say Goodbye to her love. She only gets a drawing from him, handed over from a good friend of both of them. She is going her own way. Her mother had married a good old friend and that changes the lifestyle of the family. They are moving into a nice house. The children can go to school regularly. The girl can start a training for a job. At the end she is sad and happy the same time. She will miss her first love very much and the friends she made, but she embraces also the new life.

Why is this book so important to me?

This book is from the 70ties, but i think it can play from 1920 to 1950. It is not clear said in the book. The story is timeless and just right for a girl in her teenage years. I remember laying on the floor of my room, hearing nice music and reading the book. Still something inside me is touched when I think of this. I am not sure, but it can be that this story is maybe the first when i became the protagonist in this story in my head. Before that I enjoyed reading a lot, but here I was part in the story and came really heartbroken back into the world after the story ends.

I was the same age like the girl in the book, lived a totally different life as her, but from the emotional point of view we were the same. At the beginning you think that is interesting to see the life in another decade, but then you see that there a similarities with you and the girl and you want to see how she is handling things. You can understand her very well and relive the things with her. At the end you see that there is no real ending. That the life is still going on, but that it changes you. You see how someone can grew up when confronted with reality. It is a book that is also about courage, courage to met the advantages which came along in a certain time of your life. It is the right book for young girls to be prepared for their teeenage life.