8 h 34 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 34 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
How do you begin to grow up when school, friendship, and family all ask something of you?
Gretchen Reinwald is in her final year at school, with adult life drawing closer. In Agnes Sapper’s gentle coming-of-age story, classrooms and home form the world around her. Friendship, family duty, and small daily choices give this last school year its meaning.
The story turns toward questions rather than grand adventures: how to treat others, how to meet responsibilities, and how to take the first steps beyond childhood. Sapper brings a warm, moral voice to Gretchen’s world, where growing up means thinking about both your own wishes and the needs of others.
What you’ll discover
- A year of change Follow Gretchen through a final school year shaped by the approach of adult life.
- Friendship at the center Spend time with a story that places friendship at the heart of growing up.
- The pull of duty Consider what family responsibility means for a young woman taking her first steps toward adulthood.
- Small choices that matter Look closely at everyday decisions in a world of classrooms, homes, and personal responsibilities.
- A gentle moral voice Discover Sapper’s warm attention to kindness, honesty, and the character built through daily life.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy warm school stories, family life in a bygone city, and heroines who learn by doing. It suits readers who like friendship, humor and gentle questions about kindness and honesty.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A new classroom and a surprising job
- Loyalty needs both sides of the story
- Learning housework by admitting ignorance
- A snake in the school and a hot temper
- Facing the angry father and making amends
- A house with scarlet fever and a helper in yellow
- Secrets are a cover decent people avoid
- Giving away a royal invitation
- Character grows in small daily tests
- How the story is told and what it teaches
Who’s who
- Gretchen ReinwaldA warm, honest, quick-tempered schoolgirl in her last year, who wants to be useful, loved and good at something.
- Hermine BraunGretchen's gentle closest friend and the top pupil, who helps her family with schoolwork and wants them to stay side by side.
- Miss von ZimmernThe dignified headmistress, strict about manners and rules, who watches her older girls closely and wants character more than marks.
- Pastor KernThe pastor who teaches the older girls once a month and answers the questions they send on slips of paper.
- Lene BauerThe family's former maid, who raised Gretchen, now married to a coachman and trying to win over his three wild sons.
- Ruth HollandA shy nine-year-old pupil whom Gretchen tutors in French, and who slowly learns to trust her young teacher.
- Miss TröloppA plain, energetic helper in a yellow velvet hat who steps in wherever sudden need arises and asks for no pay.
- Ottilie von LilienkronA talented, proud classmate who craves the top place and who is not at first Gretchen's friend.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet or computer, once the book texts are online.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, once the book texts are online.
- Audiobook
- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 9 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Gretchen Reinwald's Last School Year
by Agnes Sapper
A schoolgirl with a quick temper catches a snake, loses her patience, and learns what friends owe each other.
Medium level5–10 hours to readEnglish
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In short
What do you do when your quick temper gets the better of you in front of a frightened child? Gretchen Reinwald, a fifteen-year-old girl in her last year at school, has to answer that question early in this book.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A new classroom and a surprising job
The story opens on the first morning of Gretchen's last school year at Miss von Zimmern's institute. Her father teases her about her first long dress. She misses Lene, the maid who raised her and has just married.
At school the fifteen older girls expect a cold ground floor room. Instead they find a sunny classroom on the top floor, with a long green table and a small bouquet at each place. Pastor Kern will teach them once a month and invites questions on slips of paper. He tells Gretchen that nothing is so small that it is not worth doing well, even a seam sewn along a thread.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 9 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 35 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Sapper, Agnes. Gretchen Reinwald's Last School Year. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/gretchen-reinwalds-last-school-year.
Sapper, A. (2026). Gretchen Reinwald's last school year. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gretchen-reinwalds-last-school-year
Sapper, Agnes. Gretchen Reinwald's Last School Year. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gretchen-reinwalds-last-school-year.
@book{sapper2026gretchen,
author = {Sapper, Agnes},
title = {Gretchen Reinwald's Last School Year},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/gretchen-reinwalds-last-school-year}
}
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What is Gretchen Reinwald's Last School Year about?
It follows a fifteen-year-old girl through her final year at a girls' school in a German capital. She tutors a shy child, helps at home, faces a secret, and gives up a royal invitation for a friend.
Who is Miss Trölopp in the book?
Miss Trölopp is a short, conspicuously dressed woman in a yellow velvet hat whom Gretchen meets on a train. She works as a helper who steps in during sudden need, and she takes charge of a sick household.
Who wrote Gretchen Reinwald's Last School Year and when?
Agnes Sapper wrote it. She was a German author of stories for young readers who died in 1929. The story is fiction, set in a German capital with a royal court, in a time of carriages and telegrams.
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