January 1, 2012
Gr 6-8-Thor takes readers back to World War II Sweden in this sequel to A Farway Island (Delacorte, 2009). Stephie and Aunt Marta are on a boat bound for Goteborg, where the 13-year-old will continue her education while boarding with the Soderberg family. Life in the city brings intellectual and social challenges for Stephie, and she reacts to them realistically. She is naive in her relationship with the Soderbergs' son, Sven, and her temper gets the better of her on more than one occasion. Her crush on him, class conflicts, worry about her Jewish parents who are still in Nazi-occupied Vienna, and her interactions with friends and classmates keep the story full of tension. The teen matures by learning to navigate various relationships-in particular, those with a city friend, the Soderbergs, and a Jewish classmate who has an eating disorder. The ending leaves Stephie's parents' fate unknown, possibly to be determined in the next installment. Though the portrayal of Mr. and Mrs. Soderberg is stereotypical at times and there are some uneven characterizations, Thor nonetheless places readers in Stephie's world with writing that brings to mind Gloria Whelan's books. A good addition to World War II literature.-Hilary Writt, Sullivan University, Lexington, KY
Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 1, 2011
Grades 4-6 This sequel to the Batchelder Awardwinner A Faraway Island (2009) continues the story of the Steiner sisters, refugees being cared for in Sweden while their parents work to escape Nazi-occupied Austria. Now it's 1940, and 13-year-old Stephie is moving to the cultured city of Gteborg to continue her education and board with the wealthy Soderbergs, who, despite offering her a room, view Stephie as a charity case and convenient server for dinner parties. Resilient in spite of her youth, Stephie copes with making new friends, misunderstandings, an unrequited crush, anti-Semitism from some of her teachers, and worries about her parents' worsening situation in Vienna. Although admirable, Stephie is also a believable teen; readers will sympathize as she debates whether to attend a concert she knows her fundamentalist Christian foster mother would forbid. Stephie justifies going, saying her own parents would approve, but her stronger motive is spending time with a handsome, older boy. A compelling look at World War IIera Sweden, this distinguished Holocaust story will resonate. Two more titles, meanwhile, await translation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2012
It's been a year since Stephie and her little sister left their home in Nazi-occupied Vienna for the safety of a remote Swedish island. As this sequel to A Faraway Island (rev. 1/10) opens, Stephie, now thirteen, is moving to the mainland to continue her schooling and live with the Sderberg family. She soon learns that, with the exception of eighteen-year-old Sven, the Sderbergs are not quite the altruistic benefactors she expected: she's merely a boarder, not a member of the family, a "poor refugee" who affords Mrs. S. bragging rights and helps serve at dinner parties. Other challenges include the bewildering animosity of the only other Jewish girl at school and the stings, of varying degree, of the anti-Semitism Stephie encounters. But she is buoyed by her friendship with down-to-earth, loyal classmate May; by the news from Vienna that her parents have been cleared for emigration to America; and most of all by the nearness of Sven, with whom Stephie is hopelessly in love. This is a more conventional book than A Faraway Island as well as a more melodramatic one (minutes after being falsely accused of cheating and expelled from school, she discovers that Sven has a girlfriend). But Stephie's story of adjustment to a new school and of a first crush is both specific and universal, and fans of the series will want to stick by Stephie as her own future brightens even as her parents' becomes ever more perilous. martha v. parravano
(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
January 1, 2012
Its been a year since Stephie and her little sister left their home in Nazi-occupied Vienna for the safety of a remote Swedish island. As this sequel to A Faraway Island opens, Stephie, now thirteen, is moving to the mainland to continue her education. Her story of adjustment to a new school and of a first crush is both specific and universal.
(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)