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Summary
Summary
It's the summer of 1939. Two Jewish sisters from Vienna, 12-year-old Stephie Steiner and 8-year-old Nellie, are sent to Sweden to escape the Nazis. They expect to stay there six months, until their parents can flee to Amsterdam; then all four will go to America. But as the world war intensifies, the girls remain, each with her own host family, on a rugged island off the western coast of Sweden.
Summary
It's the summer of 1939. Two Jewish sisters from Vienna-12-year-old Stephie Steiner and 8-year-old Nellie-are sent to Sweden to escape the Nazis. They expect to stay there six months, until their parents can flee to Amsterdam; then all four will go to America. But as the world war intensifies, the girls remain, each with her own host family, on a rugged island off the western coast of Sweden. Nellie quickly settles in to her new surroundings. She¿s happy with her foster family and soon favors the Swedish language over her native German. Not so for Stephie, who finds it hard to adapt; she feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who¿s as cold and unforgiving as the island itself. Her main worry, though, is her parents-and whether she will ever see them again.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Twelve-year-old Stephie and eight-year-old Nellie Steiner, two Jewish sisters, are forced to leave their home and their parents in Vienna when the Nazis invade, and are placed with different families on an unfamiliar Swedish island ("Gray-brown cliffs and rocks extend along the edge of the ocean.... The end of the world, Stephie thinks. This must be the end of the world"). While their parents plan to meet up with them in a few months to escape to America, as time passes and the war advances, hope begins to fade. Adapting to Swedish life is easy and fun for Nellie, but Stephie struggles with the chilly disposition of her caretaker, Aunt Marta. She is a good student, taking to the Swedish language quickly, but she remains an outsider in school. Throughout the year Stephie suffers hardships big and small, and is conflicted after she and her sister are baptized Pentecostal. Thor's debut novel, inspired by true events and first in a series of four books, depicts a vivid and sometimes frightening picture of life as a WWII refugee, as well as the complexities of sisterhood. Ages 8-12. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Library ed.isbn 978-0-385-90590-9 $19.99 In this welcome addition to the canon of WWII stories (the first of a quartet of books previously published in Sweden), two Jewish sisters from cosmopolitan Vienna are evacuated to a fishing village on a small, stark Swedish island. Stephanie, twelve, and Nellie, eight, comfort each other on their journey with romantic visions of their new life, but the reality is bleaker, especially for Stephie. The girls are separated: Nellie is placed with kind, warm Aunt Alma and her young family, Stephie with stern, brusque, chilly Aunt Marta. At first Stephie's experiences bear out her sense of displacement: food and language and landscape are all unfamiliar; her classmates either despise her for her foreignness or grossly misjudge her identity (as when an admirer, hoping to please her, presents her with a framed picture of Hitler). Stephie's gradual adjustment to her new family and community unfolds believably, in large part because of straightforward, unsentimental prose and an immediate present tense. An unusually fine balance is achieved between the small, child-centered humiliations (having to wear an ugly old black woolen bathing suit) and joys (learning how to ride a bike) and the larger adult issues that necessarily intrude (worry about her parents' safety; the war). Most interesting is the author's matter-of-fact acknowledgment of Stephie's assimilation: at the end of the book, a year after her arrival, she no longer wishes she could go home; she is home. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
In 1939, Jewish sisters Stephie and Nellie Steiner are evacuated from their home in Nazi-occupied Vienna to an island off the coast of Sweden, where separate foster families take them in. Eight-year-old Nellie adjusts very quickly learning Swedish, making friends, and enjoying her new foster siblings. Twelve-year-old Stephie has more difficulties she is tormented by school bullies, must deal with a cold and critical foster mother, and worries about her parents' safety. Thor successfully captures the feel of small-town Sweden circa 1939-40, with its kindly citizens devoted to Christianity and good works who nevertheless harbor latent anti-Semitic views. The translation is mostly smooth, and the use of third-person present tense narration helps distance readers from Holocaust realities while subtly reminding them that child refugees still exist. The first of four volumes featuring the Steiner sisters, this should be popular with fans of Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (1989) and make a good bridge to more visceral memoirs such as Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War (1998).--Weisman, Kay Copyright 2009 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
SIXTY-FIVE years after Anne Frank's death in Bergen-Beisen, she remains so iconic that objects associated with her have become powerful symbols in themselves. Seedlings from the horse chestnut tree that grew outside the Franks' hiding place and that Anne could see and took comfort from are to be planted at places like the World Trade Center memorial site and Central High School, the desegregation landmark in Little Rock, Ark. And yet many people have trouble really seeing Anne Frank, preferring to treat her, too, as a symbol - sometimes of universal experience, sometimes of the 1.5 million Jewish children killed in the Holocaust. It sounds foolish to attribute the brilliance of "Anne Frank: Her Life in Words and Pictures," by Menno Metselaar and Ruud van der Rol, to the placement of her diary at its center. But this strategy is so obvious that it has often been overlooked. Not here: produced in a small, square format not dissimilar to the famous redplaid diary, this book places at its center a full-color reproduction of the front and back covers and 18 selected pages, with their schoolgirl script and tiny annotated photographs. History unspools through Anne's own words, amplified by succinct expository passages and profusely illustrated with Frank family photographs. The cozy inclusion of plastic photo corners and other devices underscores the way the visually rich diary inspired the graphic design of this book and makes it occasionally resemble a family album. There are photographs of the people who were in hiding with the Franks, too - Fritz Pfeffer and the van Pels family - and their protectors, who, at risk of death, supplied them with food and other necessities. But our attention remains on Anne. Passport photographs from "Anne Frank: Her Life in Words and Pictures." Few if any other Frank biographers, particularly those addressing young audiences, have so consistently, even insistently, emphasized Anne. The archival photographs of Nazi rallies and roundups of Jews that typically intersperse books about her are either absent here or relegated to an endnote. In this book, as in the diary itself, the personal is sufficiently historical. The book makes excellent use of rarely seen photographs from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam - the museum located in the building at 263 Prinsengracht where Otto Frank had his business and where he and his partner, Hermann van Pels, converted a "secret annex" on the rear top floors into a hiding place. (A remarkable series of illustrations demonstrates how the annex was hidden from street view.) Under the intimacy of the authors' gaze, Anne emerges with her vulnerability and contradictions intact. She is allowed her hopes and self-proclaimed idealism, and also her terrors and, more prominently than usual, her loneliness ("Her father had turned out to be a disappointment," the authors write). In short, she stays an individual. Of the book's less wellknown images, perhaps the most striking is a breathtaking new view of Anne: a snapshot of her at a writing desk at home, an expression of luminous intelligence on her face as she looks up and past the camera. When the diary ends, the book stays within as close a range as possible to Anne, drawing on Willy Lindwer's "Last Seven Months of Anne Frank" for much of the text and on photographs of the various concentration camps and death camps to which the Franks and the others in hiding were sent Though the authors don't exclude photographs of atrocities, neither do they play up the worst details or choose the most shocking pictures. They do not permit the reader to grow numb. THOSE who know Anne Frank's story may approach "A Faraway Island" - winner of this year's Batchelder Award for the most outstanding children's work published in translation - with the presumption that its protagonists are the lucky ones. Twelveyear-old Stephie and her younger sister, Nellie, are the daughters of a doctor and a retired opera singer. As this novel opens, it's the summer of 1939, the year after the Anschluss, and the sisters have left Vienna on a train with other Jewish refugee children, bound for Sweden. The girls fully expect their parents to be obtaining visas for America and reuniting in Amsterdam in six months' time; they also expect to stay together. (The comparison is painful: Melissa Müller's 1998 biography, "Anne Frank," revealed that a cousin in England had offered to take Anne and her sister, Margot, but that Otto and Edith Frank couldn't bear the thought of separation.) The author, Annika Thor, based Stephie and Nellie's experiences on interviews she conducted with some of the 500 Jews who found refuge in Sweden as children during World War II, along with stories from her own family. She unobtrusively brings the reader into full alignment with Stephie, who finds herself sent to a bleak fishing village, living apart from Nellie with a dour housewife who has hung a picture of Jesus in Stephie's bedroom ("Doesn't she know I'm Jewish?" she asks herself). But Stephie's foster mother is less intractable than she first seems. As Thor slowly shades her characters, deepening their personalities as Stephie gets to know them, she also captures the approaching noise of war. Stephie's conflicts multiply: she knows she is supposed to be grateful, and flashbacks to the anti-Semitism she has experienced and the brutality she has witnessed give readers enough background to understand what she has escaped. She is grateful, and she is good. But she is also angry: she has been raised with cooks and maids and fine clothing and, most of all, attentive parents, and no one acknowledges her losses. "Old, worn-out books will do for a foreign child," she thinks bitterly, "a refugee child who has to live off the charity of others." Anxiety overhangs Stephie's every step. As Germany invades Poland, each piece of news has repercussions for her family and increases her sense of responsibility for her sister. The tension is just right, as schoolroom dramas distract both Stephie and the reader from the otherwise overwhelming danger her parents face. The first of four novels that have been widely published abroad, "A Faraway Island" concludes after Norway has been invaded and Stephie's parents have asked her to help get them visas to Sweden. Readers will want to know what happens next for the characters in this powerful series. Elizabeth Devereaux is the former children's book review editor of Publishers Weekly.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Annika Thor's book (Delacorte, 2009), translated by Linda Schenck and based on interviews with Jewish people who found refuge in Sweden as children during World War II, won the Mildred L Batchelder Award for an outstanding children's book translated into English. Jewish sisters Stephanie, 12, and Nellie, 8, live in Vienna during the Nazi invasion. In 1939, their parents arrange for a children's rescue agency to find them temporary foster homes in Sweden while attempting to secure travel visas to the United States. The girls are sent to different foster homes. Nellie fits in with "Auntie" Alma and "Uncle" Seabert rather successfully. Stephanie, however, struggles in a stricter home, socially at school, and with the Swedish language. Although lonesome for their parents and former lifestyle, both girls are safe and see each other regularly. A year transpires, but no travel visas are forthcoming and the girls must endure a difficult truth that they may remain on the isolated island far from their parents. Young teen anxieties and sibling rivalries evolve throughout the year, giving the story a naturally flowing narrative. Amy Rubinate's narration brings characters into credible focus, but the vocabulary can be challenging for middle school students. Although anti-Semitic events sting, they are mild, making this a good introduction for younger students studying the Holocaust. Comments on the final disc are very helpful in helping listeners understanding the author's intent and literary style.-Robin Levin, Fort Washakie School/Community Library, WY (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
At the onset of World War II, Jewish Stephanie and her younger sister, Nellie, are sent to a Swedish island to live with separate host families while they await their parents' visas to America. Even after the turmoil of Vienna, Stephie struggles with separation from her sister and living with strict Aunt Marta in lonely isolation, while Nellie quickly finds friends and comfort. As time passes and her Swedish improves, Stephie learns more about why her circumstances are more difficult than Nellie's. While the parents encounter multiple barriers to reuniting the family, some small adjustments are made in the girls' daily lives to ease their situation. The increasing involvement of Sweden in the war provides a commonality between the girls and the villagers, allowing Stephie to look outside her pain to find an inner strength and determination that she never knew she had. Straightforwardly told in the present tense and easier for tender hearts than the brutal stories of concentration camps, this still conveys the reality of war and the suffering of those displaced by it. (Historical fiction. 9-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
One The train slows to a halt. A voice over a loudspeaker shouts in an unknown language. Stephie presses her nose to the window. Through the steam from the locomotive, she sees a sign and, farther down, a brick building with a glass roof. "Are we there, Stephie?" Nellie asks anxiously. "Is this where we get off?" "I'm not sure," Stephie answers, "but I think so." She stands up on the seat to reach the luggage rack, lifting Nellie's suitcase down first, then her own. Their school knapsacks are on the floor at their feet. They must be sure not to leave anything on the train. This is all they were allowed to bring with them, and it is very little indeed. A lady in a summer suit and hat appears in the doorway of their compartment. She addresses them in German. "Hurry, hurry," she says. "This is Goteborg. Our destination." The lady moves along to the next compartment without waiting for an answer. Stephie pulls on her own knapsack, then helps her sister. "Take your suitcase!" she says. "It's so heavy," Nellie complains, lifting it anyway. Hand in hand, they walk out into the train corridor. There are already a number of children gathered, all eager to disembark. Soon the station platform is crowded with children and luggage. Behind them, the train pulls away, thudding and squealing. Some of the smaller children are crying. One little boy is calling for his mamma. "Your mamma's not here," Stephie tells him. "She can't come to you. But you'll be getting a new mother here, one who's just as nice." "Mamma, mamma," the little boy wails. The lady in the summer suit lifts him up and carries him. "Come along," she says to the other children. "Follow me." They walk behind her in a line like ducklings and enter the station, the building with the high, arched glass roof. A man with a big camera moves toward them. The sudden flash is blinding. One of the smaller children screams. "Stop it, mister," the lady escorting them says curtly. "You're frightening the young ones." The man goes on taking pictures anyway. "This is my job, lady," he says. "Yours is to look after the poor little refugee children. Mine is to take the heartbreaking pictures so you'll get more money to do your work." He takes a few more shots. Stephie turns her face away. She doesn't want to be a refugee child in a heartbreaking picture in some magazine. She doesn't want to be someone people have to give money for. The lady leads them to the far end of a large waiting area, part of which has been cordoned off and is full of grown-ups. An older woman with glasses moves toward them. "Welcome to Sweden," she says. "We are so glad you got here safely. We represent the local relief committee. You'll be safe here until you can be reunited with your parents." This lady speaks German, too, but with a funny accent. A younger woman takes out a list and begins calling names: "Ruth Baumann . . . Stephan Fischer . . . Eva Goldberg . . ." Every time she calls a name, a child raises his or her hand, then walks over to the lady with the list. The lady double-checks the name against the brown name tags that the child, like all the other children, has hanging from his or her neck. One of the adults who've been waiting steps forward, takes the child, and departs. The children who are too small to respond to the roll call are pointed out and collected from their bench. The list is in alphabetical order, so Stephie realizes she and Nellie will have a long wait. Her stomach is aching with hunger, and her whole body longs for a bed to stretch out on. The crowded railway compartment has been their home since early yesterday morning. The miles and miles of track have carried them all the way from Vienna, Austria, far from Mamma and Papa. The rails were a link between them. Now the girls have been cut off. They're all alone. Slowly the groups of children and adults begin to dwindle. Nellie cuddles up to Stephie. "When will it be our turn, Stephie? Isn't there anybody here for us?" "They haven't come to S yet," Stephie explains. "We have to wait." "I'm so hungry," Nellie whines. "And so tired. And so very hungry." "There's nothing left to eat," Stephie informs her. "We finished our sandwiches ages ago. You'll have to be patient until we get to where we're going. Sit down on your suitcase if you're too tired to stand." Nellie sits down on her little case, chin in hands. Her long black braids reach nearly to the floor. "Nellie, I'll bet we're going to be living in a real palace," Stephie says, trying to comfort her sister. "With zillions of rooms. And a view of the sea." "Will I have my own bedroom?" Nellie asks. "Sure," Stephie promises. "Oh, no," Nellie moans. "I'd rather share with you." "Eleonore Steiner," Stephie hears the lady call out. "That's you! Say 'Here,' " Stephie whispers. "Eleonore Steiner," the lady with the list repeats. "Come forward!" Stephie pulls Nellie along, zigzagging between pieces of luggage. "We're here," she says. The lady looks back down at her list. "Stephanie Steiner?" she asks. Stephie nods. "Steiner," the lady repeats loudly. "Eleonore and Stephanie Steiner!" No grown-up comes forward. "Stephie," asks Nellie, her voice trembling, "doesn't anybody want us?" Stephie doesn't answer, just clutches Nellie's hand tightly. The lady with the list turns to her. "You'll have to wait a bit longer," she says, moving the two sisters to the side. "If you'll just stand here, I'll be back shortly." The older woman takes over the roll call. After a while, all the other children are gone. Stephie and Nellie are alone with their suitcases. "Can we go home now?" asks Nellie. "Back to Mamma and Papa?" Stephie shakes her head. Nellie begins to cry. "Shhh," Stephie hisses. "Don't start blubbering, now. You're not a crybaby, are you?" Heels clatter against the marble floor. Footsteps approach. The younger woman quickly explains something to the older one. She takes a pen out of her bag and writes on Stephie and Nellie's name tags: These children do not speak Swedish. "Come along," she says to Stephie. "I'm going to take you to the boat." Stephie takes her suitcase in one hand and Nellie by the other. Silently, they follow the lady out of the station. From the Trade Paperback edition. Excerpted from A Faraway Island by Annika Thor All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
