96 pages • 3 hours read
Monica HesseGirl in the Blue Coat
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Essay Topics
Compare and contrast Hanneke’s friendship with Elsbeth and Mirjam’s friendship with Amalia. How does Hanneke feel about Elsbeth? How do Hanneke and Mirjam react to their best friends’ seeming betrayals? How does Mirjam’s description of Amalia change Hanneke’s perspective?
Discuss the importance of letters and writing in this book. How does Bas’s unread letter affect Hanneke? How does Bas’s letter to Ollie compare with her expectations? How does she use Bas’s note in her book to come to an acceptance of his death? Alternately, discuss Mirjam and Amalia’s notes.
After spending the night at Mrs. de Vries’s, Hanneke tells her mother that she is “not her child anymore.” How does her night away affect their relationship? What does this show about relationships between parents and children during wartime?
Hanneke pretends to be many different people to survive in occupied Amsterdam—a flirtatious girl, Ollie’s girlfriend, her parents’ dutiful daughter. How does she keep track of her “true” identity among these many negotiations? How does her experience relate to and differ from Ollie’s?
Discuss Hanneke’s unreliable narration. What effect do her interjections (i.e., “That’s a lie,” “I’m not ready to talk about that yet”) have on the text? Does her reliability as a narrator increase as the novel progresses? If so, how?
Discuss the way the changes to people’s homes reflect their inner, emotional changes. Choose Mrs. Janssen or Mrs. de Vries to focus on.
How do definitions of family change during the war? Why is Mrs. Janssen so intent on finding Mirjam, for example? You might also consider Elsbeth’s home with her new husband.
What series of events convinces Hanneke that she must stop focusing on “survival only?” What images, conversations, and experiences make the horrors of Nazism real for her?
Christoffel appears as a minor character throughout the text but reveals the truth about Mirjam in the final pages. What effect does this choice have? What hints are there as to his true significance? Why doesn’t Hanneke press him about Amalia’s secret?
Explain the significance of the book’s title. Where does the coat appear in the book? How does it take on significance? Who is the girl in the blue coat?
