Background information about the book
Choosing names
Character names
When Henni first wrote about Leopold Schmidt in The Ballad of Cauldron Bay, she gave Leopold’s mother the name of Bettina and called his father Konrad. In To the Boy in Berlin, Leo Schmidt’s mother is also Bettina, which is a bit of a coincidence. In fact, Heike had a real live Leo in mind as inspiration for the Leo in the book, and his mother’s name is Bettina. Leo’s dad was going to be Konnie but that felt like one coincidence too many, so he became Knut.
The Living Link to Leopold was originally going to be Gabriele, but she became Gisela, and finally Gerit.
Book names
The working title was "Henni and Leo". When it finally came to the crunch and Elizabeth and Heike had to decide on the actual name for the book it was difficult. Here are some of the names they played with:
| Henni & Leo’s War and Peace | Octon & Schmidt |
| Hello Australia! Tschüs Berlin! | The Wall in Our Heads |
| Henni & Leo Click Send | In German ‘Gift’ means poison |
| So Close, So Far Away | At the Heart of the Matter |
| Henni & Leo and the Third Stone | Henni & LeoSchmidt fromBerlin |
| Henni & Leo and the Cruel Times | The Postcard from the Boy in Berlin |
| The Boy from Across the World | JeepersLeo! |
| The Boy from Berlin | The Meaning of Silence |
| To: The Boy from Berlin | Verdammte Scheiße! |
| Henni & Leo Shrink the World | Message into the Blue |
| Henni & Leo Unfold Time | Mail me if you want to… |
| Question Girl and Soccerman | Ask no Questions |
| North-South, Day-Night, Hot-Cold | ?girl + Soccerman |
| Going to the Pack | The Miracle Bag |
| 96 emails | Octon and Schmidt |
| Trading Words | Keyboard Outlaws |
| Get email reply hit send | |
