Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

read as part of the Girl Detective Summer Challenge (where readers are encouraged to read at least 1 of the 6-7 books featured in each chapter of Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery: The Teenage Classics We Never Stopped Reading) (www.girldetective.net/?p=4506) it's weird to re-read a book from so long ago - i was shocked by some of the language. did i know what those words meant back then? and then there were plot points that made me gasp with adult shock that i doubt i paid much attention to as a twelve or thirteen year old.
the book is set after WW II and sally is certain she's found a retired adolph hitler in miami. but her conjecture is no different than all her other movie-type fantasies she plays in her mind (or out loud with friends) her ignorance is what allows a child to read the book - an adult knows immediately the implications of the situation. for example, in sally's view we are told they've moved to miami for her brother's health, and perhaps the parents want to focus on that. but when douglas confesses to sally that he was chased by a likely pedophile, the mother's inflated worry over a broken bone and her absence at the hospital implies an entirely different worry