Westfallen
Westfallen is a 2024 middle-grade alternate history/science-fiction thriller novel by Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares. The novel features children from the United States in 1944 and 2023 as they communicate via a ham radio. A turn of events results in an alternate history where the Nazis won World War II, which the children must work together to overturn.
The audiobook is narrated by Carlotta Brentan and André Santana.
A sequel, Westfallen: Into the Fire, was published in 2025.
Plot
In 2023, three former friends reunite at the funeral of their shared pet gerbil. While burying the pet, they uncover a rusted radio buried in the garden. They move it to the tool shed; unexpectedly, the radio powers on and begins transmitting. At the same time, in 1944, another group of children discover the same radio in a shed in the same backyard, 79 years earlier. Through the radio, both groups realize they are communicating across decades.Curiosity leads the kids to share information about the future: technology, sports, even the outcome of World War II. Initially, the 1944 children use these details to prevent a local catastrophe, feeling like heroes. However, their interference soon causes unintended consequences — the timeline shifts dramatically, and the world becomes unrecognizable. History changes: the war ends differently, with disastrous results. Now, the six children must work together across time to undo the damage and restore history.
The novel is narrated in alternating sections between Henry and Alice.
Publication
Westfallen was first published in the United States by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. The novel was also published internationally by Bloomsbury Children’s Books.Formats include hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audiobook.