Werner J. Egli Tunnelkids C. Bertelsmann Jugendbuch Verlag, March 1999. 224pp. ISBN 3 570 12244 1 This is the story of a boy of about fifteen who travels through Mexico to the borders of the USA. Essentially a diary, though written in chapters like a novel, it is full of factual references, not least about the lives of the 'Tunnelkids', the poor children without homes or parents who live in the tunnels that run under the town of Nogales on the American border. At the beginning of the story the main character, Santiago Molina, reflects on his early life in a small village near the town of San Cristobal de las Casas in the east of Mexico. Soldiers have killed his father, his older sister has run off with a boyfriend, and now tensions between himself and his mother have caused him also to set off on the long trip to the States. After walking for several weeks he reaches Mexico City, where he is beaten up by a gang and then by the police after being arrested for stealing. Eventually he is found by an unexpected benefactor who turns out to be a leading barrister and campaigner for justice, and who takes him home to his family and his large estate. Santiago is happy, but leaves after venturing back into Mexico City to shoot the police officer who assaulted and abused him. The police are now after him. On reaching Nogales he joins in with the Tunnelkids and becomes a leader of one of the gangs. There is a flood. The girl he is in love with is drowned. Finally he reaches America and a new life. This book mixes violence, action, romance and anger in classic style and is an outstanding example of the new blend of fact and fiction. A gripping page-turner, it was picked by our bi-lingual teenage reader as the best book for thirteen to sixteen year olds, boys or girls, which he had ever read in either German or English.