School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-In 1938 Berlin, 10-year-old Ziska and her best friend run from classmates-turned-bullies who torment them for being Jewish, even though Ziska's family converted in the last century and she knows nothing of the Jewish religion or culture. When her father is beaten during a brutal midnight raid on their apartment and imprisoned, Ziska earns a position on the kindertransport to England, where she begins a new life as Frances, foster daughter to an Orthodox London "family for the war." In an engaging, honest voice, she relates her fears, triumphs, and revelations as she learns English and the rituals of Judaism, adapts to a new life, and copes with guilt about her growing love for her new family. She tries in vain to acquire permits for her parents to join her while they keep up a soon spotty, strained correspondence that brings increasingly heartbreaking news of those left behind. By war's end, Frances, now 17, has experienced evacuation to the English countryside and another foster home, air raids, bomb shelters, and first love with page-turning immediacy despite the sense that the story is told by a much older, reflective Frances looking back. Events and facts are expertly woven into the girl's emotional growth, and changing relationships-especially those with her complex, fading mother and differently complex foster mother-provide a rich exploration of identity and self. Like Frances, the mostly Jewish cast of secondary characters is varied, multidimensional, and sometimes unlikable. With a compelling main character and taut and insightful story line, this novel is sure to find no shortage of readers, and it adds a valuable perspective to collections of World War II fiction.-Riva Pollard, Prospect Sierra Middle School, El Cerrito, CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
This multilayered story, first published in Germany, spotlights the "Kindertransport" of Jewish children to London during WWII. Narrated in memoir style by a charming heroine, Ziska, the novel spans from her 11th birthday to her 19th. The narrative also serves as a thorough introduction to Judaism, as the protagonist-who is not actually Jewish but labeled as such in Berlin because of her Jewish ancestors-joins an Orthodox family in London. Given a new name upon her adoption, she recalls, "I had arrived. I was no longer Ziska. From now on I was Frances, and would never want to be anyone else again." Voorhoeve cogently explores themes of motherhood and adoptive families, conveying the girl's complicated relationship with her narcissistic, unstable birth mother and her growing closeness to her loving adoptive one. Frances's friendship and attraction to her adoptive brother Gary is gracefully portrayed, while the devastating cost of the war is tempered by the words of Ziska's professor friend who tells her, "Live!... And live well! That is the only thing you can do for them." Ages 12-up. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Franziska, raised as a Protestant but labeled Jewish by the Nazis, is evacuated from Germany by luck, sheltered by an observantly Jewish English family, and reunited after seven years with her mother at the end of WWII. This compelling and emotionally heightened novel follows Ziska/Frances as she negotiates the difficulties of belonging to two religions, countries, and families. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
(Historical fiction. 12 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Franziska's wealthy Berlin family has converted from Judaism to Christianity, but when the Nazis come, her parents must send her at age 11 on the Kindertransport to safety in England. During the anguished parting, her father is arrested; her mother escapes over the border to Holland; and her best friend does not make it onto the transport. When the train arrives at the English station, there is no one to meet her, but she finds a home with a kind, Orthodox Jewish family in London. What I had learned to hate, even to hide, was a source of joy in my host's family. Now called Frances, she bonds closely with her loving foster mother. Will she ever see her biological mother again? Does she want to? Originally published in Germany and translated in clear, direct prose, this novel, told from a young girl's perspective, is also a gripping history of how the war in Europe affected ordinary people. As London is bombed, Frances is temporarily evacuated to a cruel, rural family, and some of the locals hate her because she is Jewish and German. Then the news filters in about the transports and the death camps. When will the U.S. join the Allies? Will her mother survive Belsen? With the personal Kindertransport history, the intense drama about family, faith, guilt, love, and loyalty in wartime makes this an important addition to the Holocaust curriculum.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist
