Usch Luhn Blind (Blind) Verlag Carl Ueberreuter, January 2006, 144 pp. ISBN 3-8000-5208-0 Merle is fourteen years old and blind. She is an only child whose parents are close and caring and who devote their lives to making her circumstances as easy and comfortable as possible. When she lost her sight five years ago they enrolled her in a special school, remodelled their home to accommodate her handicap, and rented a piano to enable her to continue to play the classical music she loves. She is fond of her parents and grateful to them for all the care and devotion they lavish on her. Perhaps too much, for things are now about to change. It is the summer holidays and a decisive moment for Merle as she takes her first steps towards independence and falling in love. She rebels against her parents by taking long walks without their assistance, goes swimming with fun-loving neighbours and to discos with Jonny, her boyfriend, where heavy metal threatens to displace Mozart. She also discovers that she can help other people. She helps Jonny overcome his fear of darkness and the night, and through her acute senses of hearing, smell and touch is of equal though quite different assistance to his sister after an unpleasant experience she has had with a boy in a dank cellar. This novel should appeal to a wide range of teens and pre-teens, filling a gap, so to speak, between the readers of Jacqueline Wilson and Philip Pullman, a gap which publishers agree is not particularly well catered for at the moment. The book is positive, light in tone, and with lots of fast-paced, stroppy teenage dialogue. It is short and a page-turner, so young people would find it a quick, entertaining and satisfying read, particularly girls. There is a very good mix of teenage ingredients – freedom to do as one pleases, rebellion against one’s parents however well-loved, romance, clubbing, youth entertainment – together with the more serious aim of giving readers an understanding of what it may be like to be blind. In short, with its combination of serious theme and lightness of touch, it’s a hit.