Summary: Having left Nazi-occupied Vienna a year ago, thirteen-year-old Jewish refugee Stephie Steiner adapts to life in the cultured Swedish city of Gothenburg, where she attends school, falls in love, and worries about her parents who were not allowed to emigrate.
Booklist Reviews
This sequel to the Batchelder Award–winner 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 Göteborg 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 II–era Sweden, this distinguished Holocaust story will resonate. Two more titles, meanwhile, await translation. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.
Check Availability
