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As a young child, Jan Holte created stories and case histories for her dollhouse families. When she learned to write, she began to put these stories on paper and has been writing ever since. She has published several nonfiction articles. This is her first novel.
Ideas for No Black Flags in Heaven came from stories her mother told her about her aunt and the 1918 flu. The author used her grandma’s house and yard, and the neighbor’s house across the small valley as the setting for her story. The idea of using flags to communicate occurred to her when she was nine years old, sitting in her grandma’s yard. The story percolated in her mind for years, before becoming No Black Flags in Heaven.
The author lives in Minnesota with her husband and a crazy cat. They have two adult daughters.
An avid reader, she also enjoys word puzzles and swimming.
Reviewed by Katelyn Hensel for Readers' Favorite
No Black Flags In Heaven by Jan Holte is an interesting historical fiction story about two girls and their family. When their father died in the war, Mellie and Katie's mother remarried. They hate their step-father Hellmut, but after the death of their father, their mother started slipping away and now is just a shell of her former self. The girls try to help in their own way, but soon it becomes too much for them and they are constantly threatened by the deadly flu which is sweeping their town and the whole country.
There is a lot of history of propaganda and fear in the United States. From Germans and Japanese in WWI and WWII to communists during the McArthur trials, America has a long history of being suspicious and afraid of your neighbors. It's interesting to see that kind of issue from a young girl's perspective, as neighbors turn on each other in an effort to protect themselves from sickness. This book focuses on the sickness and a family as they struggle through hardship, sickness, and death in order to pull together and survive. I liked that there was a lot of ethnicity with the characters. It's clear that these Americans were not long descended from the immigrants that build this country and it was cool to see things like German phrasing, Norwegian food, etc. All have their moments to shine and really give the characters depth and heritage. I liked many different elements of the book, and overall, Jan has created a moving story in No Black Flags in Heaven.
