Bernie is a typical American teenage boy, except he’s probably more shy than most and quite a bookworm. He lives quietly with his grandparents in a small college town, and he fully expects nothing much is going to change.
He is very, very wrong about that.
He becomes a time-traveler back to the dark days of Nazi-occupied France and is reunited with his long-missing parents. There he meets Anny, who is about to become a victim of the Nazi’s Final Solution, and as things develop, only Bernie can save her.
After teaching math in college for many years, Danny turned to another of his great loves: literature. Over time, his reading interests have varied widely, ranging among such great writers as Thomas Wolfe, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, the Brontes, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Stephen King, Kate Atkinson, Jennifer Egan, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lauren Groff. Through these writers and others, he spent long periods delving into various genres, both fiction and non-fiction, and he hopes that his own writing is a reflection of these pursuits.
Reading can be a great motivator. Danny read Melissa Müller’s biography of Anne Frank in 2014, and for the next couple of years, he read almost exclusively Holocaust-related books—histories, memoirs, novels, etc. One book was particularly significant. This was Serge Klarsfeld’s French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial. About three-fourths of that very large book is devoted to photographs of French children who were victims of the Nazi’s Final Solution, and even the most casual perusal is an emotional journey. For Danny, it was a call for action that led him to write Saving Anny, his contribution to Holocaust Remembrance.
If there is a central, prominent element that runs through all of his writing, it is family. Danny believes that the human family, in its many forms, traditional and non-traditional, large and small, is and always has been a powerful and indomitable bulwark against the vicissitudes of our ofttimes precarious existence.
I received this kindle version through a Goodreads giveaway. I could tell how passionate the author is about the Holocaust just from his foreword. I too feel such compassion from this awful history, and have read quite alot on the subject. I enjoyed the book, I've not read but a few time travel books, but it was a good story, quite a different take on the Holocaust. I enjoyed the characters, especially Bernie.
Fascinating! I couldn't stop reading Saving Anny, wondering what would happen next. I experienced so many emotions as the story evolved and just couldn't imagine what I would have done in similar situations. The "acceptance" of events by some of the characters seemed to come too easy at times but I respected the intertwining of factual history with fiction. Well done.
This story is a great view of the terror of the Holocaust. I won’t mention too much, it’s a great blend between fact and fiction. I also recommend this for teens as well. It’s a quick read but an amazing book with accurate research of the Holocaust and a great story line we all think about being able to do, possibly change past events.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I won this book on Goodreads. It is an amazing personal story of WWI and the atrocities that the Jewish people suffered intermingled with time travel and a happy ending.