The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

Newbery Honor Book - ALA Notable Book - An SLJ Best Book - A Jane Addams Award Honor Book - Winner of the Jewish Book Council Children's Book Award

A classic WI survivor story based on award-winning author Johanna Reiss's own childhood during the Holocaust. Now with a beautiful new cover and revised author's note.

When the German army occupied Holland in 1940, Annie was only eight years old. Because she was Jewish, the occupation put her in grave danger. Most people thought the war wouldn't last long, but Annie knew that if she wanted to stay alive, she would have to go into hiding.

Fortunately, a Gentile family, the Oostervelds, offered refuge to Annie and her older sister, Sini. For two years they hid in the cramped upstairs room of the Oostervelds's remote farmhouse. There, Annie and Sini would struggle to hold on to hope--separated from their family and confined to one tiny room--as a frightful and seemingly endless war raged on outside their window.

This classic autobiographical novel is a strong choice for classroom sharing and independent reading.

Johanna Reiss was born and raised in the Netherlands. She taught elementary school for several years after graduating from college before relocating to the United States. The Upstairs Room, her debut novel for children, was a Newbery Honor Book, an American Library Association Notable Children's Book, and a Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Book, as well as winning the Jewish Book Council Juvenile Book Award and the Buxtehuder Bulle, a prominent German children's book prize. Reiss states that she discovered there was still something she needed to say soon after she wrote Tie Upstairs Room, something as meaningful to me as the tale I had written in the first book, the story of a war. At the end of every war, media proclaim that the fighting has ceased and that a peace deal has been signed.

The war is done from a political standpoint, but it is not truly over in another sense. Humans are vulnerable. They are powerful as well, but wars create emotional scars that can take generations to repair. This is something I know about myself and others.

And it was out of those feelings that The Journey Back was born, a narrative about the war's aftermath. Reiss resides in New York City with her daughters, and they travel to Holland frequently to see Mrs. Rachel and Sini Reiss, as well as Johan and Dientje Oosterveld, are Reiss' sisters.