The Journey Back: Sequel to the Newberry Honor Book the Upstairs Room

by Johanna Reiss

Overview

The moving sequel to the Newbery Honor book, The Upstairs Room. After years of hiding from the Nazis during World War II, Annie is told the war is over and she must return home. Despite all odds she has survived the war, but can she save her family from being ripped apart when she returns back to her war-ravaged town. In this fascinating autobiographical account, Johanna Reiss shows us that sometimes real courage isn't displayed in battle, it's displayed by a thirteen-year old learning to survive in the aftermath of war.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013871663
Publisher:	Graymalkin Media
Publication date:	12/21/2011
Series:	The Upstairs Room Series , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	210
File size:	1 MB

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.

Editorial Reviews

Grades 6-10--Johanna Reiss' moving sequel to The Upstairs Room (HarperCollins, 1972) is a vivid testimony to all whose lives were changed forever by World War II. Narrated by the author, this compelling story of a Jewish family struggling to reunite after three years of separation and hiding from the Nazis becomes a very personal account of a young girl's coming of age in war torn Holland.

Celeste Steward

An admirable account . . . as important in every respect as the one bequeathed to us by Anne Frank.
-Review for the prequel to this book, The Upstairs Room

Elie Wiesel