One night Ernst Solden announces that the family will speak only English at the dinner table. Moreover, her classmate Gerda’s father has gone missing.Īnna can tell that her beloved father is disturbed by the changes coming over Germany. In the book’s opening chapter, we learn that her school’s headmaster will not allow Anna’s favorite song, “Die Gedanken sind frei” (“Thoughts are Free”), to be played at the school assembly. But even as Anna struggles in Frau Schmidt’s class, she can sense that there are bigger troubles brewing in her homeland of Germany. Things seem to come so easily to her siblings, but Anna does poorly in school and is constantly scolded for her clumsiness. And yet I don’t think any adult should feel shame or embarrassment about reading either of them.Įight-year-old Anna Solden is the youngest of five children and has always felt overshadowed. These books aren’t even quite YA - they are written for a preteen crowd. From Anna and its sequel, Listen for the Singing, came immediately to mind. The one upside of Ruth Graham’s article trashing adults who read YA is that it prompted me to think about books written for children and teens that I still love at age 32.
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