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Summary
Summary
Anna Nickel loves:
Her classroom salamander Her house Midnight H. Cat (her cat) Jericho (her really cool Sunday School teacher) Her mom and dad and little sister, Isabella (most of the time) Colorado, not Kansas And her life just the way it is.Anna Nickel does not want to move to Oakwood. Especially when it is almost her birthday and she has a camping party planned. Especially when the school year isn't even over yet! No fair! What a disaster!
Luckily, Anna is a Gold Ribbon Safety Citizen, prepared for almost everything. Unluckily, Anna isn't ready for cousins, lost cats, water balloons and rotten eggs, peculiar relatives, blisters, emus, missing moms, church potlucks, and tornadoes. . . .
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-When fourth-grader Anna is told that her family has to move from Colorado to rural Kansas, she is beyond upset. Her father is a minister and is needed back in his hometown, so it's off to Oakwood, where, for better or worse, nearly everyone in the small town is a relative. Having always had a preoccupation with safety (she even has her own Safety Club), Anna has a lot to prepare for. Hesitant to start a new school, she joins up with her cousin to be homeschooled on her aunt's farm. However, things go from bad to worse when her younger sister and mother head back to Colorado without her because her grandfather is ill. Anna must try to navigate her family's history, fit into a new community, and prepare for natural disasters, all while figuring out what God has planned for her and Midnight H. Cat. Filled with biblical allusions and simple discussions of faith, this is a sweet book with a lot of heart. Anna's struggles with adjusting to a new town will be relatable to kids going through a move, although the religious themes may be a bit much for some. This gentle story ultimately has a happy resolution. Anna's safety tips on everything from rattlesnakes to clouds are sure to entertain readers.-Kerry Roeder, Professional Children's School, New York City (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Culture shock hits hard when nine-year-old Anna Nickel has to leave her beloved Colorado home for Oakwood, Kans., where her minister father-whose family roots are there-is called to help the church community get "over a hump." "Gold Ribbon Safety Citizen" of the fourth grade, Anna prides herself on being prepared for Colorado emergencies like bears and wildfires, but her Safety Tips notebook holds no advice for the dangers of Oakwood, such as feuding relatives (including an especially hostile cousin) and rattlesnakes. Anna is lively and thoughtful, and her parents are sympathetic and credible, but her many relatives and church members are a little hard to keep straight. Liberally sprinkled with lists of tips for disasters ranging from earthquakes and floods to clouds and bees, Kurtz's (The Feverbird's Claw) book is distinguished by its comfortable treatment of God and faith, as Anna struggles to understand the unfairness and unpredictability of disasters-natural and otherwise-as well as of human beings: "What about all the people of Pompeii baking bread until fwoomp? Volcanic ash covered them." An appealing mix of humor and substance. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Preacher's-kid Anna doesn't want to move (even temporarily) from Colorado to Kansas, where her father grew up. A safety nut, Anna is worried about tornadoes and other things she can't control. Helping on a farm teaches her to have some faith in other people and in herself. Kurtz's small-town setting, populated by Anna's extended family, is finely wrought. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Anna, almost 10, is a worrier, so her family's temporary move from Colorado to her father's hometown in Kansas seems fraught with peril to her. Founder of her own Safety Club (with just two remaining members), which is tasked with identifying potential dangers (including escape from a pyramid) and creating appropriate safety rules, Anna is nearly always prepared for any eventuality. But when her father, a minister, receives a call to straighten out a church in Oakwood, Kan., where many of the residents are his relatives, she's unprepared and decides the best way to handle things is to "stay folded up" and studiously avoid getting settled in the new town. She manages to keep from starting school, doesn't get too friendly with her large extended family, tries to keep her cat inside and skips out on Sunday school. However, her growing attachment to that family--and a tornado sweeping through town--gives her an opportunity to see things differently. Anna's internal voice is pitch-perfect, and her pithy safety rules and ability to connect the dots between religion and life are often hilarious. She imagines an encounter with a troublesome neighbor: "I was standing there frizzy with light, shouting, I'm not just a girl, you know. The angel Gabriel is basically my best friend.' " An amusing and richly rewarding tale that features a very likable, one-of-kind protagonist. (Fiction. 9-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Anna Nickles, the Gold Ribbon Safety Citizen of her fourth grade, has no interest in changing her habitat. So her family's temporary move to Oakwood, Kansas, is far beyond all the disasters she's prepared for in her notebook, which is filled with appropriate responses to threats like tornadoes and bears. In Oakwood, she has far too many relatives, many of them no more optimistic than she is, though her preacher father works hard at peacemaking. Second-cousin Simon is actively mean, and second-cousin Morgan, who supports Anna's school and Sunday school avoidance, has her own secrets. The local history of German-speaking pacifists in WWI and the mystery of past family hurts combine with present-day concerns: Can Anna keep her cat and her four-year-old sister safe? Is anyone going to pay attention to her tenth birthday? And when the heck can they go back to Colorado? Anna's sensible disaster-preparedness lists add to the appeal of a character with whom readers will sympathize for her general unhappiness and they'll rejoice for her at the whirlwind ending, too.--Isaacs, Kathleen Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
I WAS ONLY 6 when my family moved, but I remember that day more clearly than the day I moved, as an adult, into the house where I live now. Certain details still stand out: saying goodbye to the old house through the back window of our Plymouth Duster; eating Charles Chips while waiting for the furniture to arrive; and, of course, the dread of falling asleep for the first time in my own room, no longer an arm's length away from my sister. These memories came flooding back as I read "Anna Was Here," Jane Kurtz's timeless and sweetly funny middle-grade novel about the Nickel family - two sisters, two parents and a cherished pet named Midnight H. Cat - who relocate from Colorado to Oakwood, Kan. Our narrator is 9-year-old Anna Nickel, consummate big sister and founding member of the Safety Club, which prepares for potential disasters like wildfires, floods and getting sealed inside Egyptian pyramids. Like many fourth graders, Anna hates the thought of starting over again someplace else, let alone smack dab in the middle of Tornado Alley. She scrawls a message in the closet of her old bedroom: "Anna was here. And she'll be back." The question is, how soon? Anna's family has deep roots in Oakwood. Her father, Micah, now a minister, grew up in the tiny town and is eager for Anna and her sister, Isabella, to get to know the family he left behind. He's going back to help a troubled local church get "over the hump," which turns out to be more complicated than anyone imagined. As soon as the Nickels arrive in their new town, Micah becomes absorbed in the work of guiding his flock. He's constantly on his phone and seems to spend more time changing the messages on the sign outside the church than he does with Anna, who feels adrift among unfamiliar cousins. This modern thread in an otherwise old-fashioned tale reminds us that even ministers' kids have to deal with parents who are hyper-connected to their jobs. The Kansas Nickels squire Anna and Isabella around the family farm and a local graveyard, where their cousin Morgan tells them about their hardscrabble forebears. (Both girls are haunted by the tale of three sisters - Faith, Hope and Charity - who froze to death in a blizzard on the way home from their one-room school.) Yet even as Anna comes to appreciate her father's people, she craves the comfort of Colorado. She's well versed in the language of faith, but taking a leap is another matter - and adjusting to this move will require the biggest, bravest one of her life so far. As Anna's mother, a historian, says, "Wouldn't it be handy if God sent important messages on a banner behind an airplane, so everyone can read them?" But then we wouldn't have the pleasure of watching Anna puzzle through her own catastrophic worries and conflicts of loyalty. If home is where the heart is, will hers have to split time between two places? In the vein of books like Sydney Taylor's "All-of-a-Kind Family" series, Kurtz delivers a gentle, optimistic story about a devout family whose spirituality functions as both a safety net and an umbrella (a must-have in Kansas). The Nickels may navigate change - and even disaster - with a lot less friction than the average family (or at least mine), but they're far from perfect. That's precisely what will make "Anna Was Here" a moving-day classic, destined to sidestep its boxed-up brethren for the important job of steadying someone's shaky little hands. ELISABETH EGAN is the books editor at Glamour magazine.
