When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the War

• Author: Alice Hoffman
• Genre: MG Historical Fiction
• Publication Date: September 17, 2024
• Publisher: Scholastic Press

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic Press for providing me with a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bestselling author Alice Hoffman delivers a stunning novel about one of contemporary history’s most acclaimed figures, exploring the little-known details of Anne Frank’s life before she went into hiding.

Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl has captivated and inspired readers for decades. Published posthumously by her bereaved father, Anne’s journal, written while she and her family were in hiding during World War II, has become one of the central texts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, as well as a work of literary genius.

With the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family’s life is turned inside out, blow by blow, restriction by restriction. Prejudice, loss, and terror run rampant, and Anne is forced to bear witness as ordinary people become monsters, and children and families are caught up in the inescapable tide of violence.

In the midst of impossible danger, Anne, audacious and creative and fearless, discovers who she truly is. With a wisdom far beyond her years, she becomes a writer who will go on to change the world as we know it.

Critically acclaimed author Alice Hoffman weaves a lyrical and heart-wrenching story of the way the world closes in on the Frank family from the moment the Nazis invade the Netherlands until they are forced into hiding, bringing Anne to bold, vivid life. Based on extensive research and published in cooperation with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, When We Flew Away is an extraordinary and moving tour de force.

“Adding new poignance to a story whose ending we already knew, Alice Hoffman has deftly recreated the child Anne Frank with all her wit, mischief, and uncertainties. This fictionalized account of the increasingly desperate years that preceded the famous diary breaks readers’ hearts one more time. But it reminds us of how important it is to remember and honor all that was lost.” — Lois Lowry, Newbery Award-winning author of Number the Stars

Anne Frank is one of the Holocaust’s most well-known victims. The Diary of Anne Frank is read all over the world, and while it gives us insight into who she was and her experiences in hiding, it doesn’t always give a full window into her life.True to Alice Hoffman’s unique style, she has breathed new life into the story of a young girl before she went into hiding, Despite knowing about the last portion of her life, I wanted to know who Anne was outside of the attic. When she was just a young girl who had a tense relationship with her mother, idolized her older sister and her father, and when the most extraordinary thing about her was her imagination.

My own father was only a little bit younger than Anne Frank, and went into hiding with his younger brother and parents, as well as three cousins. They were in Poland, and all seven made it out alive. So this book is especially poignant to me, because while my own father survived while she didn’t. One thing I learned quickly in life was that while my father’s early experiences defined who he was as a person, he was also a complete person outside of those experiences. Before he went into hiding, he was a young boy who loved to learn and spoke three languages fluently by that time—Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew. He had a close-knit family that included grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. By the end of the war, he had only four cousins (one was placed into a Catholic orphanage because she was too young to hide out), his parents, and his brother. 

Annelies (Anne) Frank was born in Germany, and her family moved from Germany to Amsterdam after Hitler’s rise to power, to escape the influence of the Nazis and the failing economy in Germany. The book starts when she is eleven, and covers the period of the arrival of Nazis in the Netherlands up until they have to go into hiding. The amount of historical research and detail is incredible, and I especially appreciated how Hoffman captured Anne’s optimistic and creative nature in this story.

I can’t recall the exact quote or who said it, but as I read this book I realized that Hoffman has crafted a work where the freedoms of Anne, her family, and other Jews were systematically stripped away. It mirrors the experiences of my father before his family went into hiding—each day it felt like there was a new law passed limiting Jews from one thing or another. And this book really embodied the way Jews lost freedom in Nazi-occupied countries: slowly at first and then all at once.

Throughout the book, Hoffman depicts Anne as a dreamer, a creative and imaginative young girl who aspires to be an author. It’s a bittersweet story, emotional in all the right ways, getting to meet a young girl and to know that she had achieved her dream despite her early and untimely death. It’s clear that Hoffman took pains to make this as accurate as possible while still making this story accessible to young readers. I chose to read this because it had the potential to be a powerhouse of a book, especially at a time when Anne Frank’s lived experiences, her humanity, and even her life at all is thrown into question in recent days. This brings to mind all the times that Hoffman has crafted Jewish characters in her books, as well as The Dovekeepers, a book that takes place during the siege of Masada after a failed uprising against the Romans, another one I highly recommend. Anne Frank is often young people’s first experience with the Holocaust, and this book would be a fantastic addition to any library or classroom to counter the dehumanizing effects before and during the Holocaust. I recommend this one to everyone.

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