The Key is Lost

by Ida Vos

Book Overview

What would it be like to lose your home, your family, and even your name? Eva and Lisa Zilverstijn find out. When they go into hiding from the Nazis during World War II, they lose everything but each... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439291372
• ISBN13: 9780439291378
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Key is Lost

This is a great book especially if you like learning about the holocaust. It gets sad but is a very good book!!!!

The Key is Lost

This book was an excellent outlook on life during the war. When you read from Lisa and Eva's point of view you understand what it must have been like for people during this time. This book was one of the greatest books I have ever read on the Holocaust.

A sweet story about two sisters in hiding

Even though this book was written for preteens, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it as an adult. I had previously read 'Hide and Seek' for the first time at twelve and 'Anna Is Still Here' at fourteen, and had always vividly remembered them. I don't find Ida Vos's writing to be the usual kind of simplistic kiddy fare that only children want to read; the characters are memorable, the themes are thought-provoking, and the stories are timeless. It's also very striking how she always writes in the present tense. Before I read her first book, I'd had no idea a book could be written in the present tense, or that writing in the present tense makes a more compelling story than the usual style of writing in the past tense.When twelve year old Eva Zilverstijn and her nine year old sister Lisa go into hiding, they are given the fake Huguenot names Marie-Louise and Marie-Jeanne Dutour. Their parents are also given fake names. Like the Hartogs in 'Hide and Seek,' the Zilverstijn family are also at first all together in hiding, even with a bunch of friends and relatives, till it becomes too dangerous to all be hiding together. The Zilverstijns move on to another hiding place, but before long that too becomes dangerous and the parents must hide separately from Eva and Lisa. Before they leave one another, their mother gives them each identical poems, about her hopes and dreams for them and for what they'll do after liberation. Each poem is addressed to their fake French names. We learn at the end of the book that those were the actual poems that Ida Vos and her little sister were given by their own mother before they had to separate, and she included the poem in the book as a way of paying tribute to her. She says she and her sister would always reread their poems before moving to a different hiding place, and it gave them courage and hope.At first the girls stay with Eduard and Martha, and Martha's obnoxious young niece Trijntje, but things become dangerous and they have to be moved after the police crack down on a group of anti-Hitlerite Germans who have been secretly meeting in the house at night. They next stay with Big Mie and Skinny Rinus, who are also very good to them, but they also have to leave there after one of the boys who regularly comes over to eat Big Mie's pancakes sees her great-great-grandfather's antique rifles and reports it to his father, who in turn tells the police. All weapons were supposed to have been turned in by 20 September 1940, and there will most likely be trouble. The girls' friend Henny, a nurse in the underground, smuggles them to their final hiding place in an ambulance. For the rest of the war they hide with the sweet kindly puppeteer Amici Enfante, an old friend of theirs, who insists they call him Mr. Ami, since ami is French for "friend."Though there is a happy end in this book like in 'Hide and Seek' and 'Anna Is Still Here,' it's not without its sense of loss, of being forced to come to terms with everything

A very realistic and touching book.

This book by Ida Vos has a real and true story behind it.It's based on the German war in Holland and with the main characters (Eva,Lisa)who are two Jewish sisters hiding from the Natzis have only eachother to depend on while going into hiding.The author her self ,having to live these awful days while being young in the 1940's in Holland has been inspired by each tragic and painful moment that she lived and has expresed everything in this marvellous book.Hope you read it!

Growing up in wartime.

Twelve-year-old Eva, her nine-year-old sister Lisa, and their parents are Jews living in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. When the Nazis began to deport Jews to concentration camps, Eva's parents decide that the family must go into hiding. At first, they manage to stay together, but then they must split up, and Eva and her sister are sent to a seperate hiding place. They lose everything but each other. They cannot even use their real names, but must use French Catholic names instead. In spite of all this, the two sisters cling to each other for comfort and find refuge in the imaginary worlds and adventures they dream up. I highly reccomend this novel to anyone looking to read a novel on this particular subject, or to fans of historical novels.