Dear Friend..

Dear Erik, i really admire you. Even though you dont really have much experience in things, you usually know the right thing to do in a situations youve been. They have been the worst situations anyone can be in. You also know how to really get at a girl, which is another thing i really admire, youve liked Tamara from like the beginning and you actually got her. I feel that youre brave for fighting in the war. Also for saving so many lives. I sometimes also find it cowardly that you changed into the opposing sides uniform. But i guess you had to do what you had to do to stay alive. You also stayed helping in the hospital to help. You had the guts to stay and see all the people suffer. You even didnt suffer as much when you found out that the friends that you were with were dead. Some of them even died on you, or beside you. People should really admire your courage of not running away. You were also very smart and slick about no getting caught by the Russians. You also kept Tamara safe from everything that could have happened. You were also there for her when her brother died in the war. If i were to be in the situations you were in, i dont think i would be able to survive. You did everything you can to stay alive in all the battles and fights in the middle of the war. I think i would be way to scared to do what you did. It had so much risk that i dont think i would be able to do it. I dont know if you learned to do those things in the army, or it was your natural instincts but you sure as hell did a great job to stay alive in the places and problems you were in.

Setting

The setting of the story is mostly across the border of Russia. It is where Erik is hospitalized because of his injury. Most of the story takes place in the hosptital (a school). There, Erik spent most of his time on the hospital bed or helping and cleaning (after he was alright and cured). The hospital was filled with injured people. You could probably hear people suffering because of how much pain they were going through. It most likely smelled like blood in there. Erik probably hated the taste of the medicine they had to give him to relieve his pain. There were also some parts in the story where they went to places like Berlin and even a place named Grndov.

Don Wulffson

Don Wulffson was born in 1943 in Los Angeles, California. He has a teaching credential which he got in 1967. He isnt a big fan of religion. And hes confused about what he thinks about politics. Some of his favorite things to do is play sports, animals, and daydream. He was a teacher of reading and creative writing from 1967 to 1994. He became a full time writer in 1994. He has gotten awards for poems and other different things he has written. He has gotten a Leather Medal, Distinguished Achievement Award, Christopher Award for Young-Adult Literature for the book Soldier X in 2001, two Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People designations, National Council for the Social Studies/Children's Book Council. He writes novels for children, stories for children and many other things. He said once in an interview that he thinks he "learned to write before he learned how to read". He said that he has always written stories as a little kid, stories that his teachers hated, but he hated them also so they were even. He taught english for highschoolers while pursuing his dream to become a poet. As a writer for young readers, he has published hundreds of stories and poems, some plays, and more than thirty books.

Some titles that he has written are:

• The Upside-down Ship, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1986.



• Valley of the Screaming Statues ("Nightmares! How Will Yours End?" series), illustrated by Dominick Domingo, Putnam (New York, NY), 1994.



• Castle of Horror ("Nightmares! How Will Yours End?" series), illustrated by Dominick Domingo, Price, Stern (Los Angeles, CA), 1994.



• Planet of Terror ("Nightmares! How Will Yours End?" series), illustrated by Neal Yamamoto, Price, Stern (Los Angeles, CA), 1994.



• Cave of Fear ("Nightmares! How Will Yours End?" series), illustrated by Neal Yamamoto, Price, Stern (Los Angeles, CA), 1995.



• Soldier X, Viking Children's Books (New York, NY), 2001.



• The Upside-Down Voyage, Mondo Publications (New York, NY), 2004



• and many many more.

Soldier X

My book is about a 16 year old kid teenager named Erik Brandt. He is half Russian and half German. The story takes place during the time of World War 2, thats what the book is mostly based on. Everything was pretty much going well for him until he is drafted into the German Army. He barely even knows why the war is going on. He is terrified out of his mind, mostly when he sees other young soldier like him be wounded and even dead. There is a part in the book where he goes into a big battle with the Russians. Erik's company was sent to deliver products to some other German soldiers in need, the worst part that it was where the war was most serious and crazy. Most of Erik's friends that he met in the army were killed. Most of his company was killed except him. He was injured pretty badly. Apparently the Germans lost the battle and Erik was left back behind enemy lines. He couldnt run because he was outnumbered. There were to many Russians around shooting the Germans that were left alive, they were making sure they were dead.
Erik was about to be the next one to get killed. Then he came up with the idea to change into a uniform of a blond Russian soldier that was laying there, dead beside Erik. He thought it wasnt going to be that hard to go through as a Russian soldier because both of his grandparents were Russian and they taught him to speak fluent Russian. He also remembered his officer tell him to survive no matter what it took or how much risk it had. He was in need of some serious medical attention. The Russians helped him and took him to a medical center without them knowing that he was a German. He was terrified because he knew that if they were to find out, that they would torture him and do unimaginable things to him to get information from him about the German army and what there plans were.
He tried not to speak much on his time there because he was afraid he was going to say something wrong because how nervous he was. He didnt want to tell him nurse and doctor his name. They all already knew his name was Aleksander or Alex because of the suit that he was wearing. They didnt know what to call him so then they gave him the name X. They said it goes and it suits him. He also made some new German friends there. He tried to act like he had some kind of trauma or even brain loss so they wouldnt ask him about his life and how he was before because he had no idea who Aleksander really was. All he knew about him was his name and that he was using his ideantity and uniform.
There was a nurse named Tamara Imanov. X had a real big crush on her. She didnt really pay much attention to him like that. She was always there to treat him and to serve him whenever he needed something. Erik and Tamara had become really good friends. He had seen her with some guy and thought he was her boyfriend. One day he saw her crying and he asked her what had happened. Then she told him that he had died. He also soon found out that it was her brother and not her boyfriend. Erik was recovering from his injury. He didnt want to seem so recovered or else the inspector will see his alright and will send him back to fight in the army. Tamara and Eriks relationship was becoming closer and closer.
Everything was going great until people saw that the war was going to where they were. Many people from the Medical Center had died but some had run away. They went to a place named Grdnov and there they headed to Germany as nurses. When they were there, they were both accidently shot by American soldiers. Tamara was pronounced dead right there at the moment but Erik was disfigured and went to the hospital. He later learned that she was indeed alive and she visited him at the hospital where they hugged and thats how the story finished. :)

724 Words.