The Upstairs Room - Softcover

Reiss, Johanna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553247840 ISBN 13: 9780553247848

Publisher: Bantam Books, 1984

Synopsis

When the German army occupied Holland, Annie de Leeuw was eight years old. Because she was Jewish, the occupation put her in grave danger - she knew that to stay alive she would have to hide. Fortunately, a Gentile family, the Oostervelds, offered to help. For two years they hid Annie and her sister, Sini, in the cramped upstairs room of their farmhouse.

Most people thought the war wouldn't last long. But for Annie and Sini - separated from their family and confined to one tiny room - the war seemed to go on forever.

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Review

"In this fine autobiographical novel, Johanna Reiss depicts the trials of her Dutch-Jewish family during World War II. . . . The youngest of three daughters tells how she and her sister hid for more than two years in the upstairs room of the peasant Oosterveld family. . . . Offers believable characterizations of unremarkable people who survived, if not thrived, and displayed an adaptability and generosity probably beyond their own expectations."-- "SLJ."

About the Author

Johanna Reiss was born and brought up in Holland. After she was graduated from college, she taught elementary school for several years before coming to the United States to live. Her first book for children, The Upstairs Room, was a Newbery Honor Book, an American Library Association Notable Children's Book, and a Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Book, and it won the Jewish Book Council Juvenile Book Award and the Buxtehuder Bulle, a prestigious German children's book award.Mrs. Reiss writes that soon after she had finished Tie Upstairs Room, she found "there was still something I wanted to say, something that was as meaningful to me as the story I had told in the first book, the story of a war. The fighting has stopped'; Peace treaty signed, ' newspapers announce at the conclusion of every war. From a political point of view, the war is over, but in another sense it has not really ended. People are fragile. They are strong, too, but wars leave emotional scars that take a long time to heal, generations perhaps. I know this to be true of myself, and of others. And out of those feelings came The Journey Back, a story of the aftermath of the Second World War."Though Mrs. Reiss lives with her daughters in New York City, they make frequent visits to Holland to visit Mrs. Reiss's sisters, Rachel and Sini, and Johan and Dientje Oosterveld.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0553247840
• ISBN 13: 9780553247848
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback