First published 1990
Annie de Leeuw is eight years old when German tanks roll into her Dutch town of Winterswijk in 1940. The flower market where tulips and roses once bloomed now bristles with soldiers and weapons. Two years later, Annie and her sister Sini must leave their parents and older sister Rachel behind. The Oosterveld family offers them shelter in the cramped upstairs room of their remote farmhouse. What everyone expected to be a short war stretches on endlessly. Annie and Sini remain trapped in their tiny hiding place while their family faces an uncertain fate. The Oostervelds risk their own lives daily to keep the girls safe. Annie watches the world outside through a small window, wondering if the war will ever end. Johanna Reiss draws from her own childhood experiences to show how ordinary people find courage in extraordinary circumstances. The story reveals how children adapt to fear and confinement, how families sacrifice for strangers, and how hope survives even in the darkest times.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, world-war-ii, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Winterswijk, Netherlands, Oosterveld
Period: 1940, 1942
Paperback · Perfection Learning