Novels based on Kerr's life

1. WHEN HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT (1971): Takes Anna from age 8 (?) in Berlin in 1933 on the eve of Hitler's election to power -- when Anna's famous/literary father flees before the Nazis arrest him. Anna, packing to go to Switzerland with her mother and brother Max, decides to take a new stuffed animal rather than Pink Rabbit. After Switzerland, then France, and the book ends with them arriving in England as refugees. Changing countries, realizing what it means to be labelled Jewish. In France the difficulty of learning a new language. The family's financial hardships -- their comfort in each other. Everyday life -- in disruption because of adult political situation.

2. BOMBS ON AUNT DAINTY (AKA The Other Way Round) (1975): Anna, now 16 and doing an art course while living with an American family as the parents are in a refugee hotel and have no money. Max is at Cambridge on a scholarship. Anna then starts a secretarial course -- and visits her brother at Cambridge. Day to day life -- and the problems of being a non-citizen -- a long-term refugee. max gets interned on the Isle of Man; Anna can't get certain jobs. Then Hitler starts invading countries, Anna works for a knitting charity and the bombs start deopping. The hotel gets destroyed eventually and the refugees -- a bit like an extended family -- move to Putney. The father (older) never finds work -- never really learns English. The mother works, complains, worries. Anna takes an art course, falls in love with the older married instructor and is jilted for another. But she goes on to get an art scholarship. Ends wit hthe war ending and Anna looking forward to a career as an artist.

3. A SMALL PERSON FAR AWAY (1978): Re Anna being a newlywed, her brother married and a father (as well as a barrister), their father is dead, and their mother is back in Berlin as a translator/interpreter. It's 1956 -- the year/time of Hungary and Suez. The mother tries to commit suicide because her "boyfriend" had an affair. (The mother is 56.) Anna and Max come to her bedside. Anna ends up reliving her childhood relationship with her mother -- her insistent needs, her lack of confidence, her child-like characteristics, and her ability to manipulate Anna -- and how Max is the golden child. How her mother always -- in the difficult refugee years -- talked of suicide. Anna desperate to escape. Eventually does -- because of political backdrop -- and finds out she's pregnant. Re mother/daughter relationship.

Nothing horrible (except hardship and need to keep up spirit as a refugee...) Simple language, engrossing, but also boring -- though details make for a realistic picture of life for Anna. ( )