All the while, stubborn and secretive Anna hides how much the glasses have changed her life from her dismissive older siblings and even her parents. She is enrolled in a special class for visually impaired children, where she begins to make her first Canadian friends. Anna’s glasses do not magically make her a genius or an athlete she has to get used to being able to see thing like buttons and fabric textures and letters, and even with the glasses she still does not see perfectly. What I love about From Anna is how real and solid the story feels.

When Anna gets her glasses, her entire world starts to change. Suddenly Anna’s struggles in school and her clumsiness have an explanation. Anna sees only one letter: the big E at the top. Schumacher - asks Anna to read an eye chart. At a routine medical exam for new immigrants, the doctor - a kindly fellow emigré named Dr. A few weeks later, he makes an even bigger announcement: the Solden family is moving to Canada.Īlthough From Anna has the Solden family’s flight from Nazi Germany in its background, most of the book focuses on the changes that happen to Anna when she arrives in Canada. 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.

From anna by jean little