The Upstairs Room
Johanna Reiss
Theme
The theme is to never lose hope. Even though Annie has been in hiding for a while, she never loses hope that the war will end, and her family and friends will be okay after the war is over. She always tries to stay happy and look at the positive, even though it is very hard.
Summary
The book is about a little girl named Annie. She, like a lot of other people, is Jewish. She has 2 sisters, Sini and Rachel. Sini is 17, and Rachel is in her early twenties. The three girls are hiding from the Nazis. They are hiding in a friend's upstairs room in their house. All Annie wants is for the war to be over so she can be a normal kid, and so she can stop hiding. The first thing that she wants to do when the war is over, is to ride a bike again. Read the book to find out more.
Explanation of historical facts
The author tried to show how Jews in hiding would actually feel during the war. She also included important facts of how stores, restaurants and businesses would hang faux golden stars up the the windows of their buildings to show that Jews were not welcome there. Also, Jews had to eat at different places then non Jews, as she showed in the story.
The Upstairs Room. Digital image. Www.paperbackswap.com. Google Images, n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 14.