{"product_id":"mister-god-this-is-anna-isbn-9780345327222","title":"Mister God, This Is Anna","description":"From the moment Anna and Fynn locked eyes, their times together were filled with delight and discovery. In her completely frank and honest way, Anna had an astonishing ability to ask--and answer--life's largest questions, and to feel the purpose of being. You see, Anna had a very special friendship with Mr. God.\u003cbr\u003e\"Extraordinarily moving!\"\u003cbr\u003ePUBLISHERS WEEKLY\"A BOOK THAT SWELLS IN THE MIND AND HAUNTS THE THOUGHTS.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Los Angeles Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Like most good things, [this book] is deceptively simple. Insights steal their way into the reader's mind the same way Anna steals into the reader's heart.\"\u003cbr\u003e--Chicago Sun-Times \u003cb\u003eFynn \u003c\/b\u003eis the pseudonym of Sydney George Hopkins, who wrote \u003ci\u003eMister God, This Is Anna,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eAnna's Book, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Anna and the Black Knight\u003c\/i\u003e.\"The difference from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is on\u003cbr\u003ethe inside and most of a person is on the outside.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese are the words of six-year-old Anna, sometimes called Mouse, Hum, or Joy. At five years old, Anna knew absolutely the purpose of being, knew the meaning of love, and\u003cbr\u003ewas a personal friend and helper of Mister God. At six, Anna was a theologian, mathematician, philosopher, poet, and gardener. If you asked her a question you would always get an answer--in due course. On some occasions the answer would be delayed for weeks or months; but eventually, in her own good time, the answer would come: direct, simple, and much to the point.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe never made eight years; she died by an accident. She died with a grin on her beautiful face. She died saying, \"I bet Mister God lets me get into heaven for this.\" And I bet he did too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI knew Anna for just about three and a half years. Some people lay claim\u003cbr\u003eto fame by being the first person to sail around the world alone, or to\u003cbr\u003estand on the moon, or by some other act of bravery. All the world has\u003cbr\u003eheard of such people. Not many people have heard of me, but I, too, have a claim\u003cbr\u003eto fame; for I knew Anna. To me this was the high peak of adventure. This\u003cbr\u003ewas no casual knowing; it required total application. For I knew her on\u003cbr\u003eher own terms, the way she demanded to be known: from the inside first.\u003cbr\u003e\"Most of an angel is in the inside,\" and this is the way I learned to know\u003cbr\u003eher--my first angel. Since then I have learned to know two other angels,\u003cbr\u003ebut that's another story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy name is Fynn. Well that's not quite true; my real name doesn't matter\u003cbr\u003eall that much since my friends all called me Fynn and it stuck. If you\u003cbr\u003eknow your Irish mythology you will know that Fynn was pretty big; me too.\u003cbr\u003eStanding about six feet two, weighing some 225 pounds, close to being a\u003cbr\u003efanatic on physical culture, the son of an Irish mother and a Welsh\u003cbr\u003efather, with a passion for hot dogs and chocolate raisins--not together, I\u003cbr\u003emay add. My great delight was to roam about dock-\u003cbr\u003eland in the night-time, particularly if it was foggy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy life with Anna began on such a night. I was nineteen at the time,\u003cbr\u003eprowling the streets and alleys with my usual supply of hot dogs, the\u003cbr\u003estreet lights with their foggy halos showing dark formless shapes moving out from the darkness of the fog and disappearing again. Down the street a little way, a baker's shop window softened and warmed the raw night with its gas lamps. Sitting on the\u003cbr\u003egrating under the window was a little girl. In those days children\u003cbr\u003ewandering the streets at night were no uncommon sight. I had seen such\u003cbr\u003ethings before, but on this occasion it was different. How or why it was\u003cbr\u003edifferent has long since been forgotten except that I am sure it was\u003cbr\u003edifferent. I sat down beside her on the grating, my back against the shop\u003cbr\u003efront. We stayed there about three hours. Looking back over thirty years,\u003cbr\u003eI can now cope with those three hours; but at the time I was on the verge\u003cbr\u003eof being destroyed. That November night was pure hell; my guts tied\u003cbr\u003ethemselves into all manner of complicated knots.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps even then something of her angelic nature caught hold of me; I'm\u003cbr\u003equite prepared to believe that I had been bewitched from the beginning. I\u003cbr\u003esat down with \"Shove up a bit, Tich.\" She shoved up a bit but made no\u003cbr\u003ecomment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Have a hot dog,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe shook her head and answered, \"It's yours.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I got plenty. Besides, I'm full up,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe made no sign, so I put the bag on  the grating between us. The light from the shop window wasn't very strong and the kid was sitting in the shadows so I couldn't see what she looked like except that she was very dirty. I could see that she clutched under\u003cbr\u003eone arm a rag doll and on her lap a battered old paint box.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe sat there for thirty minutes or so in complete silence; during that\u003cbr\u003etime I thought there had been a movement of her hand toward the hot dog\u003cbr\u003ebag but I didn't want to look or comment in case I put her off. Even now I\u003cbr\u003ecan feel the immense pleasure I had when I heard the sound of that hot dog\u003cbr\u003eskin popping under the bite of her teeth. A minute or two later she took a\u003cbr\u003esecond and then a third. I reached into my pocket and brought out a packet\u003cbr\u003eof Woodbines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Do you mind if I smoke while you're eating, Tich?\" I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What?\" She sounded a little alarmed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Can I have a cigarette while you're eating?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe rolled over and got to her knees and looked me in the face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Why?\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My Mum's a stickler for politeness. Besides, you don't blow smoke in a\u003cbr\u003elady's face when she's eating,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe stared at half a hot dog for a moment or two, and looking at me fully,\u003cbr\u003eshe said, \"Why? Do you like me?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI nodded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You have a cigarette then,\" and she smiled at me and popped the rest of\u003cbr\u003ethe hot dog into her mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI took out a Woodbine and lit up and offered her the match to blow out.\u003cbr\u003eShe blew, and I was sprayed with bits of hot dog. This little accident\u003cbr\u003eproduced such a reaction in her that I felt that I had been stabbed in the\u003cbr\u003eguts. I had seen a dog cringe before, but never a child. The look she gave\u003cbr\u003eme filled me with horror. She expected a thrashing. She clenched her teeth\u003cbr\u003eas she waited for me to strike her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat my face registered I don't know, perhaps anger and violence, or shock\u003cbr\u003eand confusion. Whatever it was, it produced from her the most piteous\u003cbr\u003ewhimper. I can't describe this sound after all these years; no words are fitting. The feeling I can still taste, can still experience. My heart faltered at the sound, and\u003cbr\u003esomething came undone inside me. My clenched fist hit the pavement beside\u003cbr\u003eme, a useless gesture in response to Anna's fears. Did I think of that\u003cbr\u003eimage then, that image which I now think of, the only one that fits the\u003cbr\u003eoccasion? That perfection of violence, that ultimate horror and\u003cbr\u003ebewilderment of Christ crucified. That terrible sound that the child made\u003cbr\u003ewas a sound that I never wish to hear again. It attacked my emotional\u003cbr\u003ebeing and blew a fuse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter a moment or two I laughed. I suppose that the human mind can only\u003cbr\u003estand so much grief and anguish. After that, the fuses blow. With me, the\u003cbr\u003efuses blew in a big way. The next few minutes I know very little\u003cbr\u003eabout--except that I laughed and laughed. Then I realized that the kid was\u003cbr\u003elaughing too. No shrunken bundle of fear--she was laughing. Kneeling on the\u003cbr\u003epavement and leaning forward with her face close to mine, and\u003cbr\u003elaughing--laughing. So very many times in the next three years I heard \u003cbr\u003eher laughter--no silver bells or sweet rippling sounds was her laughter,\u003cbr\u003ebut like a five-year-old's bellow of delight, a cross between a puppy's\u003cbr\u003eyelp, a motorbike, and a bicycle pump.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI put my hands on her shoulders and held her off at arm's length, and then\u003cbr\u003ecame that look that is entirely Anna's--mouth wide open, eyes popping out\u003cbr\u003eof her head, like a whippet straining at the leash. Every fiber of that\u003cbr\u003elittle body was vibrating and making a delicious sound. Legs and arms,\u003cbr\u003etoes and fingers, the whole of that little body shook and trembled like\u003cbr\u003eMother Earth giving birth to a volcano. And what a volcano was released in\u003cbr\u003ethat child!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOutside that baker's shop in dockland on a foggy November night I had the\u003cbr\u003eunusual experience of seeing a child born. After the laughter had quieted\u003cbr\u003eoff a bit, but while her little body was still thrumming like a violin\u003cbr\u003estring, she tried to say something, but it wouldn't come out properly. She\u003cbr\u003emanaged a \"You--You--You--.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter some little time and a great deal of effort she managed, \"You love\u003cbr\u003eme, don't you?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven had it not been true, I could not have said no to save my life; true\u003cbr\u003eor false, right or wrong, there was only one answer. I said yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe gave a little giggle, and pointing a finger at me, said, \"You love\u003cbr\u003eme,\" and then broke into some primitive gyration around the lamppost,\u003cbr\u003echanting, \"You love me. You love me. You love me.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFive minutes of this and she came back and sat down on the grating. \"It's\u003cbr\u003enice and warm for your bum, ain't it?\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI agreed it was nice for your bum.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA moment later: \"I ain't arf firsty.\" So we upped and went along to the\u003cbr\u003epub just down the road. I bought a large bottle of stout. She wanted \"one\u003cbr\u003eof them ginger pops with the marble in the neck.\" So she had two ginger\u003cbr\u003epops and some more hot dogs from an all-night coffee stall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Let's go back and get our bums warm again,\" she grinned at me. Back we\u003cbr\u003ewent and sat on the grating, a big un and a little un.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don't suppose that we drank more than a half of the drinks, for it\u003cbr\u003eseemed that the idea of a fizzy drink was to shake it vigorously and then\u003cbr\u003elet it shoot up into the air. After a few showers of ginger pop and a\u003cbr\u003edetermined effort to do the nose trick, she said, \"Now do it to yourn.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm sure even then that this was not a request but an order. I shook hard\u003cbr\u003eand long and then let fly with the stopper and we both were covered with\u003cbr\u003efrothy stout.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe next hour was filled with giggles and hot dogs, ginger pop and\u003cbr\u003echocolate raisins. The occasional passerby was yelled at: \"Oi, Mister, he\u003cbr\u003eloves me, he do.\" Running up the steps of a nearby building she shouted,\u003cbr\u003e\"Look at me. I'm bigger than you.\"","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303084478693,"sku":"NP9780345327222","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345327222.jpg?v=1767732821","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/mister-god-this-is-anna-isbn-9780345327222","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}