The Journey Back

Rating:
Summary: Jaclyn's Book Review--2nd hr
Review: Annie de Leeuw, a young Jewish girl, has been hiding during WWII for almost 3 years with her older sister Sini at Johan Oosterveld's house with his wife Dentje, and Opoe, his mother. Now the war is over and Annie can finally be together with her family!
But things just aren't the same at her house, Rachel (Annie's eldest sister) has found a new religion, Sini is out all night dancing, her father is getting remarried, and her mother had died during the war. Annie starts finding herself missing the Oosterveld's...will things work out?
I thought this book was a little confusing at times. The plot--returing home--is a little dull also. Though I think the author has good description & her openings have a good start. She keeps you hoping that something good will happen to Annie, and is even a little suspensful.
People who might like reading this book would propbably be people who like reading about a persons feelings, or read the first book (which I had not),or just people who don't like reading action books.^_^

Rating:
Summary: An interesting but bland sequel
Review: It seems like many sequels to books about the Shoah are hit-and-miss; sometimes there will be a gripping account of a return to life, healing, love, and a semblance of normalcy, but more often than not it's just an ordinary undistinguished account relating what happened after the War. This book falls into the latter category.

Unlike many sequels of this nature, here the immediate family have more or less all stayed alive and are reunited soon after the War ends. Mr. de Leeuw and the three sisters (who appear to each be about ten years apart in age) have been in hiding, not camps or ghettos. They don't bear the same kind of intense and painful scars from that experience as someone who was in a ghetto or camp would. They were in relative safety, and Holland was no Poland or Hungary. Mrs. de Leeuw, while dead, died in the first book in a hospital because she had been very sick for a long time, not because she was murdered by the Nazis. The de Leeuws have lost friends, neighbours, and relatives, but the immediate family has not been split up, nor do they have to spend time in displacement, rehabiliation, or refugee centres, immigrate, trek across foreign lands on their way back to their native Holland, or wait around in agony waiting for word of the other members of their immediate family. They have much less to deal with than other people in post-Shoah sequels usually do. The most serious problems in here are having to get used to living together as a family again, Annie's overbearing new stepmother Magda and Magda's 18 year old daughter Nell, Sini's constant dancing with soldiers at night and her fights with her father over it, and Rachel's conversion to Christianity and the family strife that is causing. Maybe she did have a spiritual epiphany when the family who were hiding her took her to church with them for Xmas services, but it just seems tragic that someone who survived the Shoah, who had to spend those years in hiding instead of living a normal adult life all on account of her religion, would embrace a new religion instead of taking pride in her own religion once she's free to practise it again.

It's an interesting story, but really anticlimactic and overly domestic after all which went before. This recounting of what happened afterwards just isn't as gripping as the accounts of people who lost most of their families, didn't return to their native lands, or had it much worse than merely being in hiding in a relatively safe nation-state like Holland.

Rating:
Summary: The Journey Back
Review: Title of the book: The Journey Back
By: Johanna Reiss
Reviewed by: M. Poppins
Period: 5

Hitler hated Jews. He started World War II. Every time he came across a Jew, he would kill them. Annie de Leeuw and her family were Jews. Her whole family had to go hiding. Annie and her sister Sini hid in the Oosterveld's house. The Oostervelds lived in Usselo, a very small town in Holland. Annie and Sini grew very close with Johan, Dientje, and Opoe (the Oostervelds). After the war ended, Annie and Sini had to go back to their real home. Their mother was dead. Their oldest sister, Rachel, was back too. She lived with another family during the war. When everyone was home, including the girls' father, nothing was back to normal. Every night, Sini went out and danced with the soldiers. Rachel became a Christian, and she spent most of her time reading the Bible. Annie's father was always distracted. He sold cows. Sini left to be a nurse in a different town. Then, Ies (Annie's father) decided that Annie needed a mother, not just her sisters. He decided to marry a woman that had lost her husband in the war. She even had a daughter. Ies told Rachel to go to a different town, because she and his wife-to-be were just a couple of years apart, and he said that it would never work. After Ies and Magda (his new wife) got married, Nel (Magda's daughter) went to finishing school. Annie was always home with Magda, which she now called Mother. Annie could never seem to please her. Annie always visited Johan, Dientje, and Opoe too. They treated her like their own family. Magda would not let her visit for a long time, though. One day, she would probably be with them again, and it would be for the rest of her life.

I thought that this book was very good. "German soldiers. They knocked down the door, stormed in, marching and stamping and shouting to the rhythm of their boots." This was one of Annie's dreams. The author always made Annie scared, and that was what made it interesting. She always thought of the Germans, she was so afraid of them.

"Later, Johan, later." No matter what happened, Johan was always the first person that Annie called to. When she was afraid, happy, or sad, she would always think of Johan. It shows that Annie always thought of her family first, and her family was Johan, Dientje, and Opoe.

I liked at lot of parts in this book. I liked the parts when Annie went to the Oosterveld's house. She would always be happy, and she wouldn't have to worry about any German soldiers trying to kill her because Johan would be there, and she would always be safe.