The publication is a collection of tasks and exercises for self-study and classroom work on the book for home reading in German "Bitterschokolade" by writer Miriam Pressler (Beltz Verlag, Weinheim und Basel, 1986) . The manual is intended for students of 1 and 2 courses of directions 050100 . 62 - pedagogical education (profile "Education in the field of foreign language") and 035700 . 62 - linguistics (profile "Translation and Translation Studies"), as well as for self-learners of German, who have reached the level of proficiency in a foreign language A1 - B2. The manual contains lexical, grammatical exercises, tasks of a logical nature and exercises aimed at developing speech skills. The manual is intended to draw attention to certain phenomena of vocabulary, grammar in terms of their semantics, training and formation of skills of use.