From Anna, by Jean Little

[sophia_sol]

SO I just sobbed my way through reading the entirety of From Anna. I...I don't know if I can write anything like a coherent review of this book.

I used to reread this book ALL THE FRICKIN' TIME as a kid but I haven't read it for years and years at this point. And wow I had forgotten how thoroughly I identified with Anna.

This book was exactly the book to speak to me as a child: a book about a girl who was awkward and shy and slow and weird, who everyone saw as standoffish and cold, who felt out of place everywhere. I didn't cry when I read it as a kid, and I didn't think about myself as identifying with Anna. But to read a book about a girl like that and to see her slowly find herself over the course of the book, to see people who genuinely care about her for who she is, to see her growing in confidence in her own abilities and in her worth, to see her find friends and happiness - yeah, I am completely unsurprised my younger self read it so often.

So of course rereading it now as an adult is cause for copious crying. I don't know quite how to quantify my emotions. I still overidentify with Anna, but at the same time I'm apart and looking at her from a distance and feeling hella protective of her (and by extension of my younger self). And I just - idk, FEELINGS. ALL THE FEELINGS. AGH. I'm still all weepy. ANNNAAAAAAAAA. ANNA 5EVER.

Comments

[pauraque]

I've had that experience, not with that book in particular, but with certain books I read over and over as a kid. I think sometimes you just don't recognize how much the book meant to you until you re-read it as an adult, and it hits you so hard. The biggest one that springs to mind for me is Dogsbody, by Diana Wynne Jones.

And actually, I've had the same things with movies, too. Like, as a kid I loved the Mary Poppins movie, but I never thought of it as especially emotional. Yet, when I watched it with my stepson, I had to try hard not to cry at certain points, and I do not cry easily! It's not just nostalgia, but rather a moment where you get an adult perspective on who you were as a child, and there's enough distance that you are able to feel, maybe... empathy for yourself, that you couldn't before? It's hard to describe.

[sophia_sol]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to have had this kind of experience!


a moment where you get an adult perspective on who you were as a child, and there's enough distance that you are able to feel, maybe... empathy for yourself

yeah, exactly

[tei]

Yes!!!!! A family friend bought it for me randomly as a kid because "It's about a girl named Anna who has glasses, so it's about you!" Lucky guess. I should re-read it, though, because when I read it initially I hella identified with her idea of herself as someone who just generally never knew wtf was going on, and was glad I wasn't the only one to feel like I was missing something essential that everyone else got, but I didn't start getting rid of that feeling until a lot later in my life so that bit felt kind of foreign, like "damn everyone but me knows how to function including this fictional character who was comfortingly familiar at the beginning of the book." But other than that yes, excellent book!

[dira]

I decided to read this book based on this post (not least because your description of it suggested it would make an interesting contrast to The Secret Garden, which I love and have reread a zillion times but also have heard described, with some frustration, as a book about a girl who doesn't like people and wants to do her own thing but learns to be different than she is so people will like her).

Anyway! I finished it today and managed not to cry at work over it, but it was a near thing, so thank you for sharing your love for it! ♥