The Diary of Anne Frank is a book I’ll always remember reading for the first time. Anne’s voice poured off the page and she felt like a friend. Her heartbreaking journey has stayed with me for nearly forty years.
Anne Frank is an incredibly well-known heroine and role model. Ask anyone to name a holocaust story and Anne is likely to be among the replies. Because of her popularity, writing a “prequel” to the diary would be a huge challenge. Alice Hoffman has undertaken this challenge with great success. She has truly done Anne justice in sharing the days before her family went into hiding and she tragically lost her life at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
When We Flew Away is a fictional middle grade novel based on extensive research and reliable sources including The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Following the theme of hopes, dreams and what might have been had Anne’s family not been taken by the Nazis, it is a story of positivity and being true to yourself.
Anne is delightful. Chatty, entertaining, willful and headstrong, she knows her own mind. She has huge dreams of living in California and continuing to tell stories. Her relationships with her parents, sister (Margot) and friends reveal so much about the girl she was and the woman she would have become. She lived a life filled with fun, love and strength.
As the story progresses and their lives became smaller due to new regulations, the cracks in their hope grow heavy. Her parents can only do so much to protect Anne and Margot from the oppression surrounding them. Children see and hear much more than their parents think. They learn not to ask questions and to disappear into themselves. The story of Anne changes from everything she once hoped for to everything that would never be.
Readers are hit by the tragedy that this vibrant young girl, who should have the whole world at her fingertips, loses everything. Everything, that is, except love. Love can never be taken away and she holds onto it until the end along with her wish that despite all that has happened, the world remembers her. I wonder what Anne Frank would make of her legendary place in history. Through her diary and books like When We Flew Away, she lives on to show the world the injustices and horrors of persecution and hatred.
When We Flew Away is an excellent addition to any Key Stage 2 or Key Stage 3 World War II book collection. Read immediately following Anne Frank: The Diary of Young Girl, it will provide further insight into 1940s Amsterdam and the lives of the young people who lived there.
Thank you to Scholastic for this powerful book.
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