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)

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.

Based on the chilling true story of the last execution in Denmark’s history, this award-winning, mesmerizing novel asks a question that plagues a small Danish town: does a fifteen-year-old boy deserve to be put to death?

On February 22, 1853, a fifteen-year-old Niels Nelson is prepared to be executed on Gallows Hill.
The master carpenter comes to measure Niels for his coffin.
The master baker bakes bread for the spectators.
The messenger posts the notice of execution in the town square.
The poet prepares his best pen to record the events as they unfold.
A fly, Niels’s only companion in the cell, buzzes.
A dog hovers by his young master’s window.
A young girl hovers too, pitying the boy.
The executioner sharpens his blade.

This remarkable, wrenching story is told with the alternating perspectives of eleven different bystanders—one per hour—as the clock ticks ever closer to the moment when the boy must face his fate. Niels Nielson, a young peasant, was sentenced to death by beheading on the dubious charges of arson and murder. Does he have the right to live despite what he is accused of? That is the question the townsfolk ask as the countdown begins. With strong social conscience, piercing intellect, and masterful storytelling, Jesper Wung-Sung explores the age-old question: who determines who has the right to live or die?