Day after day, Carl Kollhoff stands in the back room of a bookshop and carefully wraps books in paper to deliver them to regular customers in town. Books are the greatest joy of the taciturn older man, who otherwise shies away from any contact with other people. On one of his rounds, nine-year-old Schascha follows in his footsteps. Carl grudgingly gets involved with the girl, who from then on accompanies him on his errands and calls him the “book walker”. Schascha quickly wins the hearts of Carl’s regular customers and not only upsets their lives, but also makes Carl break out of his own world.