A Faraway Island
From ChildLitWiki
Contents |
by Annika Thor
Buy from Kepler's, an Independent Bookseller
Notes
Bibliographic Data
Original Publication Date: November 2009
Publisher: Random House Inc.
Imprint: Delacorte
ISBN 9780385736176
Hardcover Price: $16.99
Paperback Price: $
Number of Pages: 247
Best for ages: 9 up
Library of Congress Descriptor: Translation of: En o i havet. In 1939 Sweden, two Jewish sisters wait for their parents to flee the Nazis in Austria, but while eight-year-old Nellie settles in quickly, twelve-year-old Stephie feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who is as cold and unforgiving as the island on which they live.
Categorization
Type of Book: Chapter/Fiction
Genres: Historical Fiction, Rural Life
Topics and Themes: Historical, Jews, WWII, Islands, Holocaust, Siblings, Refugees, Sweden, Away from Home, Foster care
Summary
In 1939, Viennese Jewish sisters, Stephanie and Nellie, are sent by their parents as refugees to Sweden. They are placed with different families on a small, windswept island, where they hope that their parents will join them later. Nellie learns Swedish quickly, makes friends, and lives with a kind family. But older sister Stephanie picks up Swedish more slowly, lives with a cold old woman, and is bullied at school. She longs for the day she is reunited with her parents, but that is looking more and more unlikely.
Reviews
This seamless translation from Swedish, based on an event little-known in this country, will not be to every child's taste. Though it is set in one of the most dramatic and horrifying periods of our history, it takes place out of the fire of war and fascism and, except for some short passages of remembering events before the story began, there are few moments of action or great drama. Instead, it is a realistic tale of children torn apart from their parents and learning to live in a foreign place. They squabble a bit, one is picked on, they worry about their parents, and try to fit in and get along.
But for experienced young readers this novel is a window into the world of a refugee, luckier than most in that she is well taken care of and not mistreated or exploited, but still torn from everything and everyone she knows, and living on the charity of strangers. With the war hovering in the background, nerve-rackingly close, it is a more gentle, sometimes moving, introduction to the Holocaust than those that take children right into the concentration camps. -- Matt Berman
Excerpt
Thunder rumbles softly in the distance. A blinding streak of lightning illuminates the dark sky. Aunt Marta points down at the house and says something. Although Stephie doesn't understand the words, she realizes that this is where she is going to be living. Way out at the end of the world.
Publisher Info and Jacket Copy
Relateds
Jewish Children in WWII
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War by Anita Lobel
The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss
Other Editions
Concerns
Violence: The war is kept at a distance, but Stephanie has memories of her dog being shot by Nazis, and of a couple being beaten. A fistfight, a boy kicks a dog, a girl is bullied.
Language: A boy calls a girl a "filthy Jew-kid."
Behavior: Stephanie steals a ceramic dog, which is later broken, but she apologizes and is mistrusted for awhile as a consequence. She is also sometimes mean to her younger sister. While the townspeople have kindly taken in refugee children, some of them are bigoted.
Education: This story, about Jewish refugees from Austria during WWII contains some information about the war and may prompt readers to look for more.
