My teachers in elementary school realized fairly quickly that I was a voracious reader. One of my teachers gave me a book she thought I'd enjoy; I had my doubts, because I didn't read much World War II fiction at the time, but I gave it a try ... and, over the next several years, I read it over and over and over again.

Somewhere along the way I lost my copy of Ian Serraillier's Escape from Warsaw (originally published as The Silver Sword), but recently I bought a new one to share with my son, who is a big fan of the I Survived genre of books, which this no doubt helped to inspire, and who recently enjoyed The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, the author of which, John Boyne, has said Escape from Warsaw was among his inspirations.

It has been long enough since I read it that much of the story felt new to me, although I quickly recognized the main characters: Joseph Balicki, a Polish schoolmaster living in Warsaw; his Swiss-born wife Margrit; and their children, Ruth, Edek and Bronia who, when the story begins in 1940, are 12, 11 and 3 years old, respectively. That year, Joseph is taken by Nazis to a prison camp in southern Poland, but he manages to escape after about two years of brutal treatment. He returns home to find it gone, learning from former neighbors that his wife had also been seized and sent to Germany as a laborer, and his children were presumed dead after one of them took a shot at the Nazis, who blew up their home in retaliation.

After weeks of fruitless searching, Joseph resigns himself to make the long trek to Switzerland, where his wife had always said they should meet if the war separated them. Before leaving, he meets a young homeless boy, Jan, who has been sheltering in the ruins of his home. He tells Jan about his children and asks him to pass a message along if he sees them, giving him a letter opener that looks like a silver sword as a token that his children will recognize.

Because of course Edek (who fired at the Germans in anger when he saw his mother being dragged away) and his sisters didn't die in the blast. They escaped over the rooftops, and for the next few years live a hardscrabble life, working and begging, alternatively living in a bombed-out cellar or in the nearby countryside. Ruth, the eldest, even takes to running something of an informal school for other refugee children. Then Edek is caught smuggling food by the Germans and is arrested; his sisters have no idea where he has been taken.

Two years pass, as the sisters struggle to survive.

The family's travails are set against the backdrop of a desperate war and occupation, first under the heel of German occupation, then turmoil as Russian, British and American forces liberate the region. Eventually, the girls encounter Jan, spot the letter opener in his possession and learn that their father is alive. Before they can make any plans to travel to Switzerland, they -- with the help of a kindly Russian officer -- trace Edek to the city of Posen, and they set out to find him first. Their accidental reunion is joyful, but their happiness is tempered by Edek's poor health after years as a slave to the Germans. Still, the children are determined to keep going to Switzerland, despite many obstacles in their way.

The book follows their adventures through Berlin and Bavaria to Lake Constance near the Swiss Alps, sometimes walking, riding in overcrowded trains, hitching rides in lorries and wagons when they can, and in one instance making a desperate flight in a pair of leaky canoes. They beg, scrounge or work for food along the way; Jan sometimes steals to keep them fed, a habit that doesn't always go as planned. They often sleep in rough circumstances, sometimes enjoying the hospitality of sympathetic strangers they meet along the way.

The book, although intended for younger readers, gives a harsh look at the desolation of post-war Europe and the desperate circumstances ordinary people found themselves in because of the conflict. Serraillier, a British novelist, poet and teacher, ensures that his characters don't suffer too badly, but even so he puts them through a kind of hell before granting them a happy ending. While the Balicki family is fictitious, their story is derived from actual accounts of wartime suffering, and this book -- written just a decade after the events depicted, meaning what seems like ancient history to us was still fresh in the minds of Serraillier's readers -- is still relevant today.

I can't wait to see what my son thinks of it.