The Meeting of Anni Adams: The Butterfly of Luxembourg [Paperback]

Lonnie D. Story (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 2004

The best book most have never read!! A favorite with homeschoolers. Often called "The Diary of Anne Frank" but with a happy ending.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"She’s the female version of Forrest Gump, describing her ability being in the right place at the right time." -- The Macon Telegraph; May 1, 2004

"The overall theme of this book is hope it has helped lots of people." -- New Smyrna Beach Observer, February 8, 2005

Absolutely wonderfully written story of faith, hope, love. A miraculous life. Very inspirational. Mr. Story has done a masterful job. -- The Florida Catholic, March 18, 2005

I just finished reading your book about Anni Adams, The Butterfly of Luxembourg. You sent a copy to Cardinal George and he recently passed it on to me. What a great story! And how well you told it! I found it very difficult to put the book down. I always wanted to read just one more chapter before turning out the lights. I suppose the story of Anni was of special interest to me, since my father was born in Bettborn, Luxembourg in 1888 and came with his parents to Chicago when he was just four years old. In 2003 my brothers and sisters and I spent a week in Luxembourg and it was a real privilege for me to celebrate Mass in the very church where my Dad was baptized. We enjoyed our trip very much and I was able to recall quite a number of the places you mentioned in your book. Anni must be a truly wonderful woman. Please let her know how proud I am of her and her family. Reading her story made me all the more proud of my Luxembourg descent. Congratulations and thanks to you for such a heartwarming story! Bishop Raymond Goedert (Chicago) --Archbishop of Chicago

Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: ACW Press; 1st edition (March 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932124268
• ISBN-13: 978-1932124262
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,215,900 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This literary work is an overlooked priceless gem for all, July 9, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Meeting of Anni Adams: The Butterfly of Luxembourg (Paperback)

Mr. Lonnie Story:

Thank you, so much, for your book on Anni Adams!!! It is one of the best, most meaningful books, other than our Lord's Word, that I have had the pleasure of reading/living! You have captured Anni's true spirit and expressed it in such a way
which convey that spirit deep into my soul. Once I started reading this treasure, I
was transported into another world, Anni's World, upon her beautiful and glorious
wings, as you so aptly stated it. What a great "metaphor" to use throughout the
story. Once I was in "Anni's World", I became "intertwined" with the characters
and the events of Anni's life, so much so, that I could not stop reading and it was
literally, hurtful, to put it down and exit that world for my "real world" existence and
all my inconsequential problems as compared to Anni's trials and tribulations!!!

Like you, I first met Anni, early 2003, when I was going to Six Sisters with my card
to pick up my monthly flowers for my wife, expecting to see Tricia. But a new person
was there, Anni Adams, who so graciously took my card and filled the order. At that
moment, I felt this was a special person, so friendly and I immediately felt at ease,
and with subsequent visits around 5:00 to 5:30 P.M. each month, even though she
was probably trying to get ready to leave for the day, she would drop whatever she
was doing to help me out. Over the next 2-3 months, around Mother's Day, I caught
her at the store, and was able to engage in some small conversation, to the point, I
thought almost like a family member, or long-time friend. When I saw the book, The
Meeting Of Anni Adams, on the counter, one day, I glanced at it, while Anni was filling
out my flower order, and it looked very interesting. When she came back, I asked her
about it and what it was about, of course, she said it was a biography about her life, and
she mentioned the war-time and her home in Luxembourg. It did not buy it then, but the
next month, I did, and she was so thrilled, itappeared, and she was so gracious to sign
it along with a few words, "to my favorite customer, God Bless", well, that made me feel
so good, and here again, it was as if I was a close acquaintance, rather than a retail
customer! It was really special!

Well, sorry for being so long-winded, but I wanted to convey my appreciation for this
"work of love", this "work for God", this "work for Anni", and I pray you have God's Blessing and much success with it. It is definitely a work Oprah Winfrey would find
beneficial to her audience on one of her book review programs! Or, even, maybe, Good
Morning America with their book reviews. Naturally, I think it would be a source for a
movie some day, or TV special feature!

Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next publication, or maybe a sequel
to this one.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faith, Love and hope with a history lesson, April 2, 2005

By 

Emile "European History Teacher; Inspirationa... (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Meeting of Anni Adams: The Butterfly of Luxembourg (Paperback)

After having the time to read and re-read this remarkable work, I am amazed that Mr. Story is a first time writer. I came across this book from an article written about it (Mrs. Adams and Mr. Story) in the Florida Catholic Newspaper. While the book is "self-published" (not for long I believe), it is definitely of much more high value than the stream of traditional work I review on the market at present. Although the book has typos and some re-edit work needed, that should not distract from the overall theme, work and glorious story of an astonishing life of a superb lady developed from childhood. Many young ladies around the world could use some lessons from this book. Many of the forthcoming generations could use the lessons from the historical aspect. In fact, I don't find much that anyone couldn't take profit from in reading this book. I give cudos to Mr. Story and he definitely, though needing minor tuning, has the ability to bring words to life and life to words in a picturesque mental format. I believe somewhere therein lies a poet. But for a first outing, I am sure that his future is bright in the literary arts. That is not to take away from the subject of the biography. In fact, I found it almost difficult to call it a biography because it transcends the boundaries of the "Arch-typical" format. Instead, it comes straight from the heart, to the page and then to one's own heart. A definitely good read and deserving of much, much higher attention against the general populous of uninteresting traditionally published books crowding the shelves.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A deeply personal, richly inspirational biography, December 27, 2005

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Meeting of Anni Adams: The Butterfly of Luxembourg (Paperback)

I've sometimes toyed with the idea of writing biographies of everyday, normal people. I think such accounts would be more interesting than you might think. When you pick up the biography of a celebrity, all you're going to read about is all the dirt, some of which might even be true, that the author threw in the mix in order to sell as many books as possible; many of them couldn't care less about the person they're writing about. You rarely learn anything about the biographical subject, and even more rarely do you learn anything about that person's life that you can apply to our own day-to-day existence. And, of course, we're all unique, and most of us have had something exciting and unusual happen to us somewhere along the way. In a sense, The Meeting of Anni Adams is the sort of personal biography I'm going on about. Anni Adams is just your typically sweet elderly lady; certainly, I had never heard of her. Her life, though, is full of important, exciting, sometimes terrifying experiences, tragedies and triumphs, and Lonnie D. Story's written account of that life is as inspirational as it is informative.

Anni Adams was a young girl in Luxembourg when Hitler's forces unleashed their pent-up vengeance against their European neighbors. Luxembourg is a very small country, and the only time you might possibly hear it mentioned in the context of World War II is when someone mentions the Germans passing through it and the other Low Countries on their way to France. This wonderful little country found itself smack dab in the middle of a deadly global conflict, yet - as far as most American history books are concerned - it hardly merits a mention. If nowhere else, though, you can now read a personal account of Luxembourg's tragedy here in these pages. The author describes the harrowing flight of Anna's family to refugee status in France and, eventually, back to occupied Luxembourg, her father's struggles to keep his family together over the next several years in the face of Nazi domination, the ruthless persecution of the Jews (including Anni's best friend from childhood), and even the dangers posed by Allied bombers in their work to defeat the hateful German war machine. This account of Anni's coming of age during the late 1930s and early 1940s offers a most informative window on several relatively unknown aspects of World War II.

Of course, Anni's story didn't end with Hitler's defeat. Having captured the heart of a brave American GI named Charlie Adams, Anni joined countless other European women traveling to the United States as war brides. The book chronicles Anni's difficult adjustment to life in a new country, the joys and sorrows of her growing family, and the really quite extraordinary successes and experiences she enjoyed over the coming years. It turns out that Anni isn't quite the nobody she might appear to be to anyone passing her on the street.

This is an unusual biography, in that it is extremely personal. The author, Lonnie D. Story, worked closely with Anni in putting the details of her life onto paper. He makes no secret of his deep respect and awe for this woman who overcame so much. The most obvious manifestation of his admiration for his biographical subject is the butterfly metaphor he uses to describe her on many occasions. He goes a little overboard in this regard, but it's not a problem because, more than anything else, it demonstrates the passion and assiduous work ethic that fuelled the writing process.

In the end, I have to say that The Meeting of Anni Adams showed me a whole new dimension of World War II, namely its terrible consequences for the innocent, non-Jew civilians of the Low Countries, brought that global war down to a rarely seen personal level, helped me appreciate the deep spirit of the Luxembourg people - who could be occupied physically but never conquered in their hearts, reminded me to celebrate the national ideals that allow anyone coming to America from foreign shores to realize his/her own version of the American Dream, and taught me how to live a better and more successful life, with the true measure of success having nothing to do with dollars and cents.