Notes: Maximo and Mummelsee

Maximo and Mummelsee was a very quick write (and a surprisingly easy one at that). I was hoping for more input from my editor/reader on this project (Kurt Dieckmann), but if you don't ask, you don't receive, right?

Anyway, I felt it was a good project. My mom, however, thinks it was my best effort thus far. I don't know why. Maybe it was that the story wasn't a disjointed collection of "side trips", like most of my other works.

Maybe it was because the main characters often had "sit-com" situations to get them to new places. Ying's family moved from Beijing to Shanghai to get from one chapter to the next. Gemma's father took her to Cebu, which included stories about passenger boat trips and pier markets on different islands.

Still, Max and his father took three road trips: one to Mummelsee, one to Munich, and one to St. Goarshausen. I don't know why she liked it best. I hope I get more readers to give input on good, better, best. Hopefully, there will not a be a consensus.

I am glad I could explore the history of Germany fully while avoiding the stereotypical "Hitler and the Jews" setting that seems to haunt both cultures. I wonder how my Israel stories will play out...