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The Upstairs Room Book Report

Decent Essays

It was the year 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland. All of the Jews had to hide with Gentile families, or they would have been sent to concentration camps, an awful place where suffering and death was inevitable for the helpless Jewish men and women. The Jews who were fortunate enough to find a non-Jewish family that was willing to take care of them, spent several years hiding, staying away from windows and scurrying upstairs to the isolated bedroom whenever they heard footsteps. They spent years away from their family members and the outdoors in fear that they would be caught and killed. This is the life of Annie De Leeuw, our young, naive Jewish narrator. Johanna Reiss, the author of The Upstairs Room, goes into detail on what life was like if you were Jewish at the time she was a child. She was able to elaborate on certain details because she was the frightened, yet curious, girl in the book who went through all of the traumatic events. Johanna Reiss wrote this book from her own point of view, as an innocent minded, ten year old girl. She and her sister truly went into hiding during World War II, like Annie and Sini did in the book. The story behind the book lead to it becoming a Newbery Honor medal recipient in 1973. …show more content…

Unfortunately, for almost three years, Annie was not allowed to be a normal, raucous causing girl. She had to cut her hair and dress like a boy to ensure a safe arrival at the Gentile family´s house. She was to remain as quiet as she could and have no contact with anyone from outside of the household. Although, throughout the book, Annie made contact with a few other people, despite the danger of her even stepping outside the safety of the bedroom. Because of the confined space in the house and nowhere to be, Annie did not get a lot of exercising in throughout the day. Sini was on Annie about walking around the house, so she did not have a funny

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