A Faraway Island [Hardcover]

Annika Thor (Author), Linda Schenck (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2009 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Torn from their homeland, two Jewish sisters find refuge in Sweden.

It's the summer of 1939. Two Jewish sisters from Vienna—12-year-old Stephie Steiner and 8-year-old Nellie—are sent to Sweden to escape the Nazis. They expect to stay there six months, until their parents can flee to Amsterdam; then all four will go to America. But as the world war intensifies, the girls remain, each with her own host family, on a rugged island off the western coast of Sweden.

Nellie quickly settles in to her new surroundings. She’s happy with her foster family and soon favors the Swedish language over her native German. Not so for Stephie, who finds it hard to adapt; she feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who’s as cold and unforgiving as the island itself. Her main worry, though, is her parents—and whether she will ever see them again.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–8—In this gripping story, Stephie and Nellie, two Austrian Jewish sisters, are evacuated in 1938 from Vienna to a Swedish island and placed in separate foster homes. Twelve-year-old Stephie has promised her parents that she will try to ease her younger sister's way, a burdensome promise to keep. Auntie Alma, Nellie's Swedish mother, is warmer and more welcoming than Auntie Märta, Stephie's more austere foster parent. At first it seems that Nellie will have a more difficult time adjusting, but the opposite happens. Loneliness and a sense of isolation engulf Stephie. The shunning and taunting of cliquish, bigoted girls intensify her longing for home and the familiar, but Stephie bravely perseveres, bolstered by the hope that she will only be separated from her parents for a short time. Unfortunately this does not happen, and the girls must remain on this faraway island. Children will readily empathize with Stephie's courage. Both sisters are well-drawn, likable characters. This is the first of four books Thor has written about the two girls. It is an excellent companion to Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (Houghton, 1989), Kit Pearson's The Sky Is Falling (Viking, 1990; o.p.), and Olga Levy Drucker's Kindertransport (Holt, 1995).—Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ
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About the Author

Annika Thor’s novel, A Faraway Island, is the first book in a quartet featuring the Steiner sisters. The books were bestsellers in Sweden and were adapted into a popular television series. She lives in Stockholm.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (November 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385736177
• ISBN-13: 978-0385736176
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #825,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Older Readers - 2010, January 17, 2010

By 

STBAC Past Chair "Kathe Pinchuck" (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Faraway Island (Hardcover)

Based on interviews with real Jewish refugees in wartime Sweden, A Faraway Island offers a new angle on Holocaust stories. Apparently there was a Swedish version of the Kindertransport. 500 Jewish children were sent to safety in Sweden in 1939 and had varying types of experiences living with Swedish families. In this novel, Stephie Steiner (age 12) and her sister Nellie (age 8) leave their parents in Vienna for an island off the coast of Sweden. Placed in two different homes, with two related families, they are safe but encouraged to accept Jesus and eventually baptized, with no understanding or regard for their Jewish heritage. Stephie is bullied and teased while Nellie manages to fit in, even as she risks losing her Jewishness. As the war comes closer, to Denmark and Norway, and the chances of reuniting with their parents diminishes, details of the sisters' mostly secular former life in Vienna are gradually recalled and revealed: Nazis humiliating a shopkeeper and his wife, isolation of the Jewish students in separate schools, their father's experience in a labor camp, fancy shops, the loss of their luxuries, the burning of their synagogue. The author, described as having been "born and raised in a Jewish family in Goteborg, Sweden," has written four novels about Stephie and Nellie. In this one, the girls do not protest the loss of their religion; perhaps this occurs later in the series. In an author's note, Thor explains that she wrote the book in the present tense to contribute to "a better understanding of the vulnerable situation in which refugee children continue to live." - SUSAN BERSON - DENVER, CO

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars really liked this book, January 30, 2010

By 

Karin Lib "avid librarian" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Faraway Island (Kindle Edition)

A great addition to the Holocaust literature. I will be reading all of this author's books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Faraway Island, December 28, 2009

By 

Jewish Book World Magazine (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Faraway Island (Hardcover)

In the summer of 1939, Stephie and Ellie Steiner are sent from Vienna to Sweden to escape the Nazi threat. They live on a small island off the mainland. Eight-year -old Nellie adjusts quickly, picking up the language, making friends easily, and enjoying the company of her foster mother, Auntie Alma and her two children. Twelve-year-old Stephie has a harder time. Her foster mother, Auntie Marta, is a strict and thrifty woman. Stephie misses her parents very much, and she worries about them and how they will fulfill their plans to emigrate to the United States. Stephie does well in school, but there is a group of girls who taunt Stephie and exclude her. Through an incident with teasing, Stephie sees that her foster mother cares and that she has a friend. She is much happier.
Although this is a story about Jewish girls, the Jewish content is limited to anti-Semitism and when the foster mothers take the girls to church with them. When the singing and warmth makes Stephie cry because it reminds her of synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, Auntie Marta is thrilled that she has "embraced Jesus so quickly." The pace is rather slow, setting the tone of how miserable Stephie feels. The story ends abruptly, with Stephie no longer feeling at the end of the world. An author's note describes the history of sending children to Sweden during World War II. The book is the first of a four-part series about the Steiner sisters. For ages 10 - 14. Kathe Pinchuck