Talking Volumes: Alice Hoffman on ’When We Flew Away’

Alice Hoffman was 12 years old when she first read Anne Frank’s diary. Not only did the book reach in and make Hoffman feel known, but it made her want to be a writer.

“I really believe that what you read when you’re 12 or 13 is the most important reading of your life,” she told MPR News host Kerri Miller on Thursday night when the two were together on stage at the Fitzgerald Theater for Talking Volumes. “It changes who you are as a reader and as a person.”

Talking Volumes: Alice Hoffman

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Hoffman is known for her many adult novels, including “Practical Magic” and “The Dovekeepers.” But she’s also adept at children’s fiction. Her new book, “When We Flew Away,” fits into the second category. It imagines a young Frank, living with her family in Amsterdam, two years before the world breaks and they are forced to go into hiding.

In many ways, life is normal. Frank is trying to find her place, both in her community and within her family. She is at times joyous and at times mournful. But the shadow of the war looms.

Hoffman said to get inside of Frank’s world, she spent chunks of time at the Anne Frank House, walking in Frank’s footsteps and even visiting some of her childhood friends. She also wove mythic elements through the book, as a way to “capture a reality too horrible to be true.”

Don’t miss this Talking Volumes conversation about a past that feels very present. Singer-song Haley E. Rydell’s music perfectly completed the evening.