It wasn't at all what I expected. I had no idea that the main character, Patty Bergen, was Jewish. I also always thought that "the girl" was closer in age to "the boy." That wasn't the case. Anton, the soldier, was 22 years old to Patty's 12 years. I also thought I was going to learn more about the German POWs. (After reading When We Meet Again, I want to learn more about the German POW situation in the US during WWII. This book didn't teach me anything. Nothing.) That was probably my biggest disappointment.
What I think the main idea of the story is supposed to be is that Patty, a young Jewish girl, helps a German "Nazi" prisoner of war escape from the POW camp in rural Arkansas. That was such a little part of the book. This book would not be a great book for students to learn anything about the imprisonment of Germans in the US during WWII.
What I think the main idea of the story really was coming of age, a girl coming to value herself. Patty is not valued by her very dysfunctional family. As the only Jewish family in the rural southern town, she's an outcast amongst her classmates. She just doesn't fit in and she places the blame for that squarely on her own shoulders. She's simply unlovable. Her only friend is her housekeeper/nanny, Ruth. Patty finally asserts herself by waiting on a German prisoner customer, Anton, in her parents' department store. She takes things into her own hands when she witnesses him trying to escape. This is the real value of the book.
In the e-book edition that I read, there was a preview of the sequel to Summer - Morning is A Long Time Coming. The second novel picks up when Patty is 18, graduating from high school. I may or may not read this sequel at a later date.
I think I need to do a little more research about Bette Greene, though. She admits in the forward that she is Patty and that Patty's parents are her parents. I wonder, was any of the POW part of the story true.
No comments:
Post a Comment