Book Descriptions
for The Last Execution by Jesper Wung-Sung
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
On February 22, 1852, 15-year-old Niels Nielsen was the last person to be executed in Svendborg, Denmark. He had been charged with arson and the murder of the sheriff ’s son. This story opens just before dawn on the day of his execution. The boy waits in his prison cell in almost a dreamlike state, reflecting on his life and the circumstances that led to him being charged as the relentless clock keeps ticking and the hour of his execution approaches. He led a fairly miserable existence, wandering with his father, hungry and cold, looking for work. There were also rare moments of kindness from strangers, one of which connect to the actions for which he’s being executed. His only company in his cell is a fly, and lonely Niels imagines conversations with him. The points of view of various people in the village, from the baker to the messenger to the carpenter who is building Niels’s coffin, all add up to an unusual glimpse into a bit of history that is far from irrelevant today. (Age 14 and older)
CCBC Choices 2017. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2017. Used with permission.
From The United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY)
Convicted of arson and the brutal murder of the sheriff's son, fifteen year-old Niels Neilsen is hours from a public execution in a small Danish town. He passes these remaining hours looking back on his life with his father, an itinerant farm laborer, reminiscing over a short romance with a local girl, conversing with a fly in his cell and receiving visits from a priest and the carpenter who will build his coffin, whose voices we also hear. In this sparse yet haunting book, Niels reveals his humanity and what drove him to commit these crimes, leaving readers to ponder the issues of circumstance, guilt and innocence, which resonate today.
USBBY Outstanding International Title Pick, 2017; CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book.
Author lives in Denmark.
Danish. Originally published in Copenhagen, Denmark as Den sidste henrettelse by Resinante & Co./Host & Son in 2010. English translation by Lindy Falk van Rooyen published in the United States by Atheneum Books for Young Readers in 2016.
© USBBY, 2022. Used with permission.