Prince William, Maximilian Minsky and Me

A brainy girl's first crush — on a certain British royal — leads to unexpected discoveries about life, loss, love, and loyalty in this hilarious, poignant, award-winning novel set in modern Berlin.

Nelly Sue Edelmeister knows exactly who she is: a skinny thirteen-year-old Berlin schoolgirl with thick glasses, a brain the size of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, and a brilliant career ahead in astronomy. But that's before she develops a hopeless crush on the handsome and newly bereaved Price William, future king of Great Britain. And it's definitely before she meets the odd but oddly attractive Maximilian Minsky — former New Yorker, full-out goth, and basketball ace — who is klutzy Nelly's last hope for making the school team before it heads off to Eton, England, and virtually into Prince William's arms. Meanwhile, Mom is pushing Nelly to do the bat mitzvah thing, and her parents are bickering day and night. Sometimes it seems like the no-nonsense Risa, their beloved, elderly family friend — a survivor of Germany's darker past — is the only one in the house who keeps Nelly sane.

With pitch-perfect insight into adolescent angst and infatuation, family tensions, and the experience of being Jewish in contemporary Berlin, Holly-Jane Rahlens paints a humorous and surprisingly moving portrait of a determined heroine posed to charm young readers across the globe. Includes a glossary of foreign terms.