Image: Scholastic
Happy Tuesday! Teen Tuesday features When We Flew Away: a Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary by Alice Hoffman. This work of historical fiction won't be out until September 17, but I was sent an arc (advance reader copy) from the publisher. Ms. Hoffman, who mostly writes novels for an adult audience, imagines Anne Frank's life from 1940 to the family's move to the annex.
The Frank family had moved from Germany to the relative safety of Amsterdam, while trying to get papers to leave Europe altogether. Anne dreamt of moving to California to be near the movie stars. She loved her Montessori school and her sister, Margot, though she felt she, as a loud child who tended toward bossiness, paled in comparison to perfect, passive Margo.
As country after country falls to the Nazi, Anne holds out hope that the Netherlands will be spared. Young adult readers already know the outcome.
Ms. Hoffman worked with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam to weave a fascinating story. She writes in her Afterword about the impact reading Anne Frank's diary had on her when she was a teen. This imagining starts out a bit slow, but Ms. Hoffman paints a vivid, believable picture.
My one nit has to do with the statement at the beginning of chapter twelve, where Ann "woke at six, but she made herself stay in bed until daylight flickered through the window." I am an early riser and love when it is light at five in the weeks leading up to the summer solstice and beyond. I looked it up, sunrise was at 5:18 AM on 6/12/1942, Anne's thirteenth birthday. I don't believe many, if any teen readers will notice.
Happy reading!
Happy reading!
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