Book Description
for The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss
From The Jane Addams Children's Book Award
In this fine autobiographical novel, ten-year-old Annie, the youngest of three Dutch-Jewish sisters, recounts the years she and her young adult sister spent hiding in the upstairs room of a farm family in Holland during World War II. Truly the simple, human book Reiss aimed to create, the story portrays the girls and the family who harbored them not as heroes but people, with strengths and weaknesses, who banded together for the sake of humanity.
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award: Honoring Peace and Social Justice in Children’s Books Since 1953. © Scarecrow Press, 2013. Used with permission.