Coming September 17th, 2024 from Scholastic Press; 304 pages
Content Warning: The Holocaust, antisemitism, familial death
About the Author: “Alice Hoffman is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including Magic Lessons: The Prequel to Practical Magic, The World That We Knew, The Rules of Magic, The Marriage of Opposites, Practical Magic, The Book of Magic, The Red Garden, the Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, and The Dovekeepers. She lives near Boston” (Bio from author’s website).
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Before the Frank family started living in the Secret Annex as the Holocaust progressed, they first had to watch their old lives fall apart piece by piece. Anne Frank was an ordinary Jewish girl, but she was also bright enough to think critically about what was going on around her. She began her classic diary in June of 1942 at the tail end of her freedom. When We Flew Away is Alice Hoffman’s imagining of Anne Frank’s life before she moved into hiding, starting when Anne was just a child experiencing worsening conditions for Jews in the Netherlands. The book explores the Frank family dynamic as they slowly come to realize that their optimism may have been misplaced and that good does not always win out over evil.
Although When We Flew Away is centered around Anne, we occasionally get to see the situation from other perspectives, like those of her parents, grandmother, and sister, Margot. I found these perspectives to be the most impactful because the actual accounts of the family members are, for the most part, lost to history. In the diary, Anne has a notoriously bad relationship with her mother, so it was nice to see Edith Frank portrayed in a more tender light, doing the best she could to protect her girls. It was heartbreaking that Otto Frank, the pillar of his daughter’s strength in the diary, was portrayed as losing hope that things would get better. The incremental changes that led up to the Holocaust’s consequences were excellently and tragically depicted through poetic writing, which Anne might have appreciated. Even so, some may find the symbolism excessive, with the vicious wolves lying in wait and the repeated reference to wicked black moths both representing the evil forces of the era. Oftentimes, Anne’s vibrant personality got lost amidst the symbolism. Though the Anne described in When We Flew Away uses empathy to inform her insights, the real Anne is better known for having used her logic and linguistic skills to make observations. While the real Anne’s analytical voice is nearly impossible to recreate, the Anne in this book came across as rather quiet and passive by comparison. Even though Hoffman effectively highlights the rising feeling of helplessness among Jews during the Holocaust, the inability to capture Anne’s lively spirit causes the book to be less captivating than it might have been.
When We Flew Away releases from Scholastic Press on September 17th, 2024.
Pine Reads Review would like to thank Netgalley and Scholastic Press for sending a copy in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes may be subject to change before final publication.
Abby Ballas, Pine Reads Review Writer & Editor