This is a sto­ry about life on both sides of the sep­a­ra­tion wall in the West Bank. Joshua lives on the Israeli side and, one day in an attempt to recov­er a miss­ing soc­cer ball, he scales the wall, explores a tun­nel, and reach­es a Pales­tin­ian town where he begins to bond with a fam­i­ly and make friends. As he gets to know them over a series of suc­ces­sive vis­its, his per­spec­tives begin to change. His trou­bled home life plays into the sce­nario, as well. The sto­ry unfolds with dra­ma and some of the char­ac­ters are engag­ing and sym­pa­thet­ic. Yet the author can­not hide a clear emo­tion­al pull toward one side of the con­flict. Joshua’s peo­ple are clear­ly harsh­er; his new friends are drawn more gen­tly. The true com­plex­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion is not addressed on the page. Read in con­junc­tion with books that might be more bal­anced with a teacher or trained dis­cus­sion leader, this book might be a valu­able resource to enhance under­stand­ing of a thorny and dif­fi­cult-to-com­pre­hend real­i­ty. On its own, it is a flawed though well-told nar­ra­tive with an obvi­ous polit­i­cal slant. Ages 12 and up