But while Janna-Berta survives, due to her having been exposed to radioactive rain and mist whilst on the road, whilst attempting to flee, she does lose most of her hair due to radiation sickness (and although the authorities, although both the government and the military attempt to downplay the scope of the tragedy, it soon becomes public knowledge that well over 18000 people have been killed, with many more tens of thousands seriously and likely chronically ill due to radiation exposure). After the nuclear reactor at Grafenrheinfeld malfunctions and releases massive clouds of radioactive gases etc., Janna-Berta's parents and youngest brother Kai are killed by nuclear fallout and her other brother Uli is then fatally run over by a car as the two try to escape by bicycle and make their way to Hamburg where their aunt lives, Hamburg being located in an area of Germany not directly affected by the radiation, by the nuclear fallout.

Now basically, Die Wolke is a doomsday (and dystopian) type of scenario of what happens (or more to the point, of what realistically speaking might occur) in Central Germany during an all encompassing nuclear accident scenario akin to what transpired at Chernobyl. Gudrun Pausewang's 1987 novel Die Wolke ( Fallout), about a large scale nuclear accident/disaster in what was then still West Germany and its devastating, far reaching consequences, was published only one year after the 1986 Chernobyl incident and is in my opinion a heavy-duty, gripping, generally painfully unpleasant (albeit also very much engaging and important) reading experience, suitable, acceptable for older teenagers above the age of fourteen or so (and thus, the same age as the main protagonist, Janna-Berta, who is indeed fourteen).

Die Wolke by Gudrun Pausewang