Novelist Alice Hoffman was 12 years old when she discovered Anne Frank’s “Diary of a Young Girl” and the story of how Anne and her family hid in a concealed attic as the Nazis hunted Jews in Amsterdam made an everlasting impression.
Hoffman writes in the author’s note to her new novel: “It changed the way I looked at the world. It changed the person I was and the person I would become.”
Hoffman would go on to win acclaim for novels like “Practical Magic” and “The Dovekeepers” but the flame that Anne's diary lit burned steadily in her imagination and now she has returned to it.
Hoffman’s new novel about Anne for young readers and adult readers alike brings us into the Frank’s family life in the months before they are forced to go into hiding.
We learn about Anne’s friends, her fractious relationship with her mother, her love for her sister.
“When We Flew Away” is moving and remarkable. Hoffman will join me on the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul on Sept. 26th for Talking Volumes.
