"Journey to America" describes the [Platt family's] escape from Nazi Germany in direct, unsentimental prose.

The author briefly sketches the humdrum background of Lisa's life: the ballet lessons, skating parties and schoolgirl pranks. Firmly anchored to reality by the warmth and devotion of her family, the girl succeeds in transforming fear into action, pain into humor as she is plunged into a nightmare world of storm troopers, indifferent bureaucrats and extortionists who prey on the misfortune of others…. Lisa's subsequent adoption by a Christian family is a joyful prelude to the family's ultimate reunion in America.

Although Mrs. Levitin has done little to camouflage the tragedy of the Hitler years, today's children—so often over-whelmed by a sense of pervasive moral and environmental crisis—will find this story of a family's courage and devotion more thrilling than terrifying. (pp. 26-7)

Gloria Levitas, "Stories of Adventure and Adversity," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1970 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), May 24, 1970, pp. 26-7.