Published in 2024, Alice Hoffman’s When We Flew Away is a middle-grade historical novel about Anne Frank during the two years before she and her family went into hiding to escape Nazi persecution during World War II. While the narrative includes historical events and draws on factual information to create the characters, it constructs fictitious day-to-day situations, conversations, and thoughts to show the impact of the German invasion and occupation of the Netherlands on Anne and her family. With themes of The Loss of Innocence in the Context of War and Genocide, The Impact of Violent Ideologies on Interpersonal Relationships, and Family and Community as a Source of Support, When We Flew Away explores Anne’s early coming of age and growing interest in writing while revealing the dangers that necessitated the family’s hiding in Amsterdam. 

This guide refers to the 2024 edition by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of religious discrimination, graphic violence, bullying, illness and death, animal death, and physical abuse. In particular, the text depicts antisemitism during the Holocaust, including persecution, forced labor, imprisonment, genocide, the Nazi camp system, and family separation.

Plot Summary

Anne Frank is almost 11 in May 1940. She lives in a small apartment near a public square in Amsterdam with her mother Edith, her father Otto, and her sister Margot. As Jewish people, Otto and Edith have feared the Nazi political party’s rise to power since its beginnings in the early 1930s in their home nation of Germany; at the time, the Netherlands welcomed Jewish immigrants, and Otto and Edith thought moving there was a safe choice. The Franks settled in Amsterdam by 1934; Edith’s mother, Rosa, whom Anne calls Oma (grandmother), joined them from Germany after Kristallnacht (the “Night of Broken Glass,” November 9-10, 1938), when the intensifying persecution of Jewish people manifested in the destruction of synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses and the arrests and murder of many Jewish people.

Anne is a curious, creative thinker who notices everything in her surroundings, such as the magpies on the roof and the city’s fairy tale-like buildings and canals. She attends a Montessori school with more freedom of expression than a more rigid public school, but even there, she is known for her abundant energy and sometimes excessive chatting. She also has a flair for drama, acting, and make-believe. Margot, a strong, focused student, thinks Anne is a dreamer, and Otto and Oma believe her qualities make her special; Edith, however, is often frustrated by Anne’s ways and wishes she would quiet down, especially at school.

Otto runs a jam and spice business in Amsterdam along with partners. His assistant, Miep Santrouschitz, is close to the Franks. Otto has applied for visas to America for the family; they are on the waiting list.

On the day the novel opens, Anne tries to convince Margot to stop for ice cream, but Margot refuses. It is a lovely spring afternoon, but Anne has a momentary feeling of dread she cannot explain. The next morning at dawn, the German army unexpectedly invades the Netherlands. The family listens anxiously to the radio, waiting for other countries in the world to help, but just weeks later, German forces vanquish the Netherlands’ small military and establish control. Edith and Otto are afraid to live in a German-occupied country because of the atrocities committed in Germany and Poland by the ruling Nazi regime, but they must wait for approved travel visas before leaving. Their applications destroyed during the invasion, Otto reaches out to a Jewish acquaintance in New York, Nathan Straus Jr., for help.

Over the next two years, the occupying Germans subjugate and gradually oppress Jewish people in the Netherlands. Jewish schoolchildren must attend Jewish-only schools, so Anne is forced out of her Montessori setting. Jewish people are no longer allowed in many public places and businesses, so Anne cannot ice skate or go to the movies, and the family must shop at Jewish-only markets where the food is in terrible condition. The family hopes their plans to emigrate will soon come through, but eventually, Mr. Straus writes to say he cannot help. When American forces enter the war in 1941, the Franks’ hope is renewed, but they soon see that freedom is a long way off. When Jewish people in Amsterdam are forced to register their names and addresses and wear yellow Stars of David as visual identification, Otto realizes time is running out. He decides to place his business in the name of his partner, and he and Edith make quiet plans to hide their family with help from Miep and her husband.

As the German occupation steals freedoms and creates fear, Anne also contends with other conflicts in her family and personal life. She is bereft when Oma passes away; she struggles to earn Edith’s affection; she wonders how young people will ever pursue their goals or fall in love in wartime. Increasingly, she sees the illusion of black moths in corners and on the streets, symbols for the spreading evil under Nazi rule. Anne’s deepening anxiety prompts Otto to take her on a short trip to the countryside after she turns 12. Although the trip is enjoyable, with time to read books, observe nature, and talk with her father, Anne’s sadness is even more pronounced upon her return, and she begins to demonstrate a quieter, more introspective side. She determines she will be a writer and receives a journal for her 13th birthday.

When a notification arrives informing Margot that she must report for deportation to a forced labor camp, Otto and Edith know they have no time left. Miep and her husband help move the family’s packed bags to the secret hiding location Otto has prepared: upper rooms in a building annexed to his spice business offices. Before dawn on July 6, 1942, the family enters the hiding space without knowing how long they must remain.