The amazing journey of a young boy, David, travels across Europe, with the wonders of life and the will to survive.

 

David is a 12 year old boy that has lived all his life in a concentration camp, in Burgaria. He does not know anything about his parents or where he comes from, or why he is in the camp. All he knows is that he is David. One day, without any explanation, a guard arranges for him to escape. The electric current is switched off from the fence around the camp for half a minute, just long enough for David to climb over. He is given bread and water and a compass. He is told to head south to Salonica, and to sneak away on a ship sailing to Italy. Then to walk north until he comes to a country called Denmark. And that is what David does.

 

What kind of person would you be if you had spent all your life in a concentration camp? The first thing you may notice about David is his extraordinary lonely and shy. He has survived in the camp by never allowing himself to think further than the next meal. After the death of his friend and teacher, Johannes, he never permits himself to have any affection for anyone.

 

Out of the camp and on the run he believes, not unreasonably, that 'they' are after him. Of all the people that he meets on his long journey, he doesn't feel able to trust anyone. And so he travels his journey alone.

 

David does not trust anyone, therefore he does not accept anything or talks to all the people he comes across.

 

But as David journeys across Europe he begins to understand that he cannot live life entirely alone. He does need other people, Maria, who he saves from the fire, and the dog, and perhaps a mother of his own, Sophie. And it works the other way round - other people may need things from him. It is not good enough for David simply to hate evil when he finds it in others. If others say they are sorry for their evil acts then he must also learn to forgive, because relentless unforgiving is another kind of cruelty.

 

The book is not set in a real time or place. Although the situation seem real enough, David's background is a combination of all the terrible fighting that happened during the Second World War. This helps to make David a very powerful and pure figure. Anne Holm uses him as a person that is shows- beauty, knowledge, trust, religion, love, everything.