‘Practical Magic’ Author Alice Hoffman Pens New Anne Frank Novel (Exclusive)

Bestselling author Alice Hoffman, best-known for Practical Magic, which became the cult classic film of the same name, is turning her pen toward an important historical figure like we’ve never seen her before: Anne Frank.

In When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary, out Sept. 17 from Scholastic Press, we get to see Anne’s world before she and her family were forced into hiding in the annex of her father’s office. Hoffman draws on her extensive research on that period to explore what happens when “state-sponsored discrimination turns ordinary people into monsters, the Jews in the Netherlands are caught in an inescapable swell of violence and hate, and Anne is shaped as both a young woman and as a writer who will change the world,” according to the publisher’s synopsis of the book.

The book, which is geared toward middle grade readers ages 8-12, includes archival content from the Anne Frank House and information about Otto Frank’s desperate attempts to secure his family safety in America, gathered from correspondence between Frank and Nathan Straus, Jr. from the Straus Historical Society’s Archives.

It recounts Anne Frank’s life prior to the posthumous publication of her famous journal, The Diary of Anne Frank, by her father. Frank’s diary recounted her Jewish family’s experience in hiding during the Holocaust. She began writing in the diary at the age of 13, and the last entry was written three days before the Frank family was found and arrested by Nazi soldiers.

“Anne Frank’s story is more important than ever,” the author tells PEOPLE. “We need to remember the damage hatred can do, and how love and hope can change the world.”

Below, read an exclusive excerpt from When We Flew Away.

There is a day you never forget, the day the whole world changes.

When you close your eyes, light becomes dark, night never ends, beasts walk freely down the street, stars fall from the sky. You were young one second, and then you were far too old. You lived years in minutes and decades in weeks.

You wanted to travel, you wanted to grow up, you wanted to be beautiful, you wanted to fall in love. You wanted so much that your heart broke in half, but half a heart is better than none, and your heart is stronger than anyone would guess.

You remember everything.

You see the leaves turning green on the elm trees along the canals after the spring snow. Songbirds are rising up from the branches, and the bells over the bookstore doors are still ringing. There is a heron sitting on a balcony, a bird that is a sign of good luck. You are wearing two sweaters and a coat though the day is warm. When you see black moths rising from deep underground, you can barely breathe. In this moment, you suddenly realize you may not always be with the ones you love. Something is happening all around you.

This is when you understand that the story can change.

Part One

Little Sister

Amsterdam, May 1940

Once, there were two sisters. One was beautiful and well-behaved, and one saw the future and stepped inside it. One planted a rosebush, but the other one noticed that every white flower was turning red. One did as she was told, but the other one wrote down everything she had seen.

When you write it down, they cannot pretend it never happened.

In fairy tales there were two parts of every story, the inside and the outside. The outside was green and bright, just as it was now when they walked home from school, trying not to be late on the day before something unthinkable was about to happen, something they would have never expected as they talked about ice cream and books. The inside of the story was the stone that no one could see, hidden in the center, like the pit of a fruit, one so sharp it could cut you if you reached for it. It was tomorrow, and the day after that, and the years that would soon come.

Anne had faith in the future. She often imagined that she would someday go to California. She would ride down the Pacific Coast Highway and live in Hollywood and become an actress.

But on this day when they were late, she thought she could see a shadow following her and Margot. Standing in the dappled sunlight that spread through the leaves of the trees like lace, Anne felt a sudden chill. She looked up past the Skyscraper, where all the windows reflected the bright sky, and she wondered if the weather would change, even though winter had passed and it was now the most beautiful month of the year.

There outside her own home, she had caught a glimpse of the inside of the story, the one their parents didn’t want them to know, the reason fairy tales warn children to beware at every turn. You cannot know when evil will appear. That was the inside of the story, waiting to open like a dark flower. She could only see its shadow from the corner of her eye, a large black moth. She spied it only for an instant, but it was long enough for Anne to tug on her sister’s hand and say Hurry, and then they ran so fast it was almost as if they were flying.

The family lived at number 37 Merwedeplein, and the sisters often raced up the stoop two steps at a time to see who could get to the door first and run inside. But this time they paused at the threshold. They could hear raised voices inside. Their apartment had a sign that asked visitors to ring three times (3 x BELLEN), but the girls often barked three times instead, reading the word bellen for its German meaning, bark. Now, however, Margot gripped Anne’s arm to keep her from entering.

“Let’s give them a minute,” Margot whispered. Their parents had had more to disagree about since coming to the Netherlands, and Margot’s eyes shone with empathy. She wanted to believe all would be well. “Husbands and wives argue. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong,”

Margot told Anne when she saw the worried look on her sister’s face. This time their parents were quarreling about Anne, whose teachers had complained about her. Starry-eyed. Dreamer. Doesn’t pay attention. Talks when she should be quiet. Talks all the time. Anne had been chattering to her friends when she should have been paying attention to her lessons. Even though her teacher didn’t appreciate Anne doing as she pleased, she usually also praised her for being bright and independent.

“She’s special,” Anne heard her father say as he argued with their mother, which made her love him all the more. Pim was such an elegant, generous man, handsome and educated, but also kindhearted. He saw his younger daughter for who she was, the girl who was always questioning, who had so much to say, the one who wished she could fly away and see the whole world.

Adapted from WHEN WE FLEW AWAY: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary by Alice Hoffman @ScholasticPress. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary by Alice Hoffman comes out Sept. 17 and is available now for preorder, wherever books are sold.