I read these three books — about the same three sisters — repeatedly in middle-school:
I found them again recently and re-read them all. The first book in the series is “Journey to America” and that’s about a family leaving Germany right before World War II. And the two other books are about when they build their life in America.
Even when I was little, I was always confused by these books, because whereas the first one shows a family with strong, loving parents determined to save their family, the next two books show the parents being ridiculous and petulant and lashing out, and not really people you’d respect. I always got confused how it could be the same parents in the first book versus the latter two, and I got the same whiplash this time, also.
Ruth is the oldest of the three sisters, and something that really stood out to me this time was what a brat she was. I didn’t think that in middle school, I thought oldest sisters were sacrosanct. Even when Ruth was yelling at her younger sisters needlessly and pushing them away, I just excused it because she was the oldest sister. But now I saw her for the vicious spitfire she was.
In the first book, it’s all about survival and closeness; but as the sisters grow older, both Ruth and the middle sister Lisa just become really annoying and selfish. So you reflect back to the first book and think a little wistfully: hmmm, so this is what you turn into?
And finally, in the first book, the family isn’t religious at all. Then all of a sudden in the second book, they are. I found out why. The author wrote the first book, and then waited several years, maybe even a decade or two, until she wrote the last two. In the intervening time, she went to visit America’s Lover! And I guess that gave her an awakening. This was yet another jarring shift when you go from reading the first book to the second.
The names of all three sisters in the books are Ruth, Lisa, and Annie. In real life, the sisters names are Vera, Eva, and Sonia, and in real life, they really did escape from Germany right before WWII. The book was written by the youngest of the three. In real life, she was a tiny three-year-old tot when she left Germany, so Ms. Sonia wrote the first two books from the perspective of her middle sister, Lisa. One of the reasons I liked the books when I was little was because I liked how the names Ruth, Lisa, and Annie fit together. But I’m not sure I like Vera, Eva, and Sonia.
Something I had completely forgotten was that in the second book, the family moves from New York City to Los Angeles. Completely forgotten! They arrive in Union Station, which was how I arrived the first three times I came:
Union Station is a grubby place these days (the above picture makes it look bright and airy, but it’s a fluke of the sunlight), but I think in the books it’s described as clean and fresh. I guess it looked different in the 1940s.
Just one more thing: I think this author didn’t know math very well, or she just fudged the numbers and hoped we wouldn’t notice. The youngest sister, Annie, is 3 years old in March 1938 and is somehow almost thirteen in spring 1945. Creative, no? Same with the other two sisters: Ruth is almost 14 in March 1938 and turns 24 in 1945, while Lisa goes from age 12 to 22.
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