This dense, at times disturbing, posthumously published work by a German author centers on "small and deformed" Bambert, who lives alone above a grocery store. Bambert "felt like a shipwrecked mariner cast up on hostile shores on the far side of a dream. This world was purgatory to him." The man rarely leaves his home, fearing that "adults would pity him and children would laugh at him." Sitting by his attic window at night, he writes stories by the light of the moon. One day Bambert tears apart the Book of Wishes
containing his 10 tales and sends them into the world to "find their own settings." As to the four blank pages remaining in the book, that would become the 11th story, "he secretly hoped... [it] might actually write itself if only it tried." Bambert places the tales in separate envelopes, which he attaches to tissue-paper hot-air balloons powered by tea lights and launches from his attic window. Gradually, the stories return with postmarks from various countries and time frames, delivered to Bambert by Bloom, the grocer downstairs. Several of the tales contain intriguing twists, most notably a story of poet-prisoners in Russia and of a child in Sarajevo whose drawings seem to foretell the war's developments; but at times Bambert's commentary overshadows the tales themselves. Still, Bloom's unexpected role in the novel is a clever contrivance, and Bambert's belief in stories as living, breathing contributors to life's meaning may well intrigue book lovers and aspiring writers. Ages 10-14. (Nov.)
