Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
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Book Reviews of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Book Review: A glimpse into the life of Anne Frank
Summary: 5 Stars
"Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" is the diary (a non-fiction work) of a Jewish teenager who lived during the Holocaust and World War II. The book is 304 pages, which includes an introduction written by Eleanor Roosevelt and an afterword, which contains information about what happened to the Frank family after Anne's diary ends. Bantam published this edition in 1993, although a press in Amsterdam first published the diary in 1947. It was her father, Otto Frank, who went back to the place where the family hid for over two years, found the diary, and decided to publish it. Originally, parts in which Anne discusses and expresses her romantic feelings were cut out of the book, as the publisher felt they were too risqué; but when the diary was published in the U.S., these parts were put back into the book. This edition also includes photographs of Anne Frank, as well as photocopies of the actual pages of the diary. By including these, the reader is really able to get a sense of Anne's personality through her handwriting. The Reading level of this book is about an 8.2, meaning it is perfect for 8th graders, or those who read at about an 8th grade reading level, although it is a book you will read over and over, even after you become an adult.
The diary is fascinating to read--Anne begins the diary on her thirteenth birthday, weeks before her family goes into hiding. As the war rages in Europe, Anne is forced to wear a gold star, designating her as Jewish, but her life continues in a relatively normal way. This all changes when a note arrives, stating that the Nazi's want her older sister, Margot. The Frank family hides, spending their next two years in a secret annex in the building where Otto Frank worked. Anne and her family share their space with four other people--Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan (business associates of Mr. Frank), their son, Peter, and Mr. Dussel. Anne is faced with the challenge of living out her adolescence in such a confined space.
As you read her diary, you will be able to relate to the range of emotions Anne displays. She gets excited about events, she feels scared and nervous about her life, she falls in love and receives her first kiss while in hiding, she feels jealousy towards her sister, and she often feels anger and resentment toward her mother. If you did not know the context of her life, Anne might seem like a normal teenager you might know. Yet, as she wonders about whether Peter likes her or not, she also has to worry about if someone will betray the family. She lives in constant fear of discovery, and everyday, the seven hidden members of their Annex follow the news, praying for the defeat of the Nazis, so that they can once again live their lives. Ultimately, tragedy strikes Anne and her family, but Anne's words have given generations of teenagers a glimpse into what it was really like living through the Holocaust. I found this book to be so wonderful that I can't say anything bad about it, and I encourage everyone to read this dairy so that you too can understand what it was like to be a teenager living through the Holocaust.
Book Review: One of the most powerful and influential books of the Twentieth Century!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" is one of the most significant historical records in the history of mankind. It is a diary that leaves one forever changed for the better to have been through the emotional and heart-wrenching experience of sharing the thoughts, ideas, emotions, and observations of a teenage girl who died during the final days of World War Two. Anne was a teenager whose keen insight and profound intellect speaks to the heart, soul, and mind of every reader....she has been widely loved and respected all over our world for the messages of love and hope she leaves to us from so long ago......
Anne Frank was born in 1929 and died of starvation, neglect, and disease shortly before her sixteenth birthday. She and her family were forced into hiding by the evil force that mercilessly and relentlessly hunted them. While trapped in a tiny set of rooms, Anne wrote what would become the most moving account of what it was like to suffer under Nazi tyranny that was to survive and emerge from this dark age in our world's history, thus leaving the world a vivid account of what the end result of state-sponsored prejudice and discrimination can spawn.
While Anne's diary still has the power to make people weep decades after her tragic death, this remarkable teenager's writing ultimately had the power to do what no other diary or essay of the time accomplished --- Anne Frank's work bankrupted the idelology of National Socialism.
It's almost impossible for those of the Twenty-First Century to understand that in the first half of the Twentieth Century the ideology of National Socialism had the support of some in the intellectual community. While it took the combined might of the Allied Armed Forces to militarily defeat the military forces representing the ideology of National Socialism, it has never been possible for military force to defeat an ideology. Anne Frank's diary accomplished what no other intellectual of her time was able to do.....her diary bankrupted the intellectual foundations of the National Socialist ideology that had led the world to such agony and grief during the Second World War. Anne Frank's influence on future generations is multi-faceted..... she speaks to those who read her diary as an account of what it is like to cross the bridge from childhood to adulthood and to travel this bridge under the most difficult conditions imagineable, as well as those who read her diary as an account of what the ultimate result becomes when a nation embraces the ideology of hate, fear, and force.
Anne Frank is one of the most influential historical figures of our era, and her diary is one of the most significant first-person historical accounts of tragedy and triumph that has ever been left as a priceless gift for future generations........Her diary will remain as a beacon of hope and understanding for all mankind forever and ever and always and always to the end of time!
----- John Michael O'Loughlin
Book Review: Spectacular propaganda
Summary: 5 Stars
This is, at best, a novelization of Anne Frank's diary. I don't doubt that there was a young Jewish girl named Anne Frank who lived in the Secret Annexe with her family and four other people. I don't doubt that she kept a diary of her life in the Annexe, or that all the occupants were terrified of being discovered. I don't doubt that they were the victims of a terrible crime against humanity.
What I doubt is that the Anne Frank who speaks to us through the words is the real Anne Frank. Instead, the Anne Frank of the book is a creation of the editor and translator. She writes unlike any 13-15 year old. Her words are unmatched in eloquence and she uses words and phrases that are far beyond the vocabulary of even bright young teens.
Likewise, the pacing and story construction is so well done as to call into question the authenticity of Anne's words. The book is too novel-like to be believable as a diary. The clever use of wording and pacing lead to a depth that can be plumbed for meaning many times over. One such "trick" is how Peter Van Daan is called to be respectful towards Anne in their blooming romance. Anne is hopeful that Peter will not "disappoint" her by making too forward of advances. Later on, she mentions in a single breath that she is disappointed in him, but this is not accompanied by any explanation. The very next diary entry, she relays her fretfulness over her late period. The astute reader may put two and two together and come to the conclusion that Anne and Peter may have been having sexual relations. But it is cleverly never said outright.
Another example is how the diary foreshadows Anne's reunion with Lies through her premonitions. Before her death, Anne once again met with Lies at the concentration camp. It is a little too convenient.
The incarnation of Dostoyevsky's Amalia Ivanovna in the person of Mrs. Van Daan was a nice touch. (poof! poof!)
The triumphant closing diary entry stands in sharp contrast to the subsequent real-life events that took the lives of most of the Secret Annexe occupants. The book is too perfect, its timing too impeccable, and its style too eloquent that it ceases to be the diary of Anne Frank and is instead the novelization of whatever diary she may have actually kept.
Strangely, it was the afterword that affected me the most. Where it is the narrator discussing the end of Anne's life as it happened, where she is stripped of her eloquence and becomes the real Anne Frank once again.
The book is deep and rich. It encourages thoughtfulness in the reader, and challenges the reader to examine his own beliefs. It humanizes the victims and shows them to be sometimes good, sometimes bad, many times brave, and occasionally terrified. It's less the diary of a young girl than it is the tragic story of people making the best in an impossible situation. I can't recommend it enough.
Book Review: Well-written and deeply moving
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I read Anne Frank's famous diary of her experiences in 1942-1944 as a Jewish teenager hiding in Amsterdam, I wondered if it was so well-known because it was well-written, or because it served as a compelling historical document of a difficult time and place. After reading it I can say that, for me at least, it is both.Anne's story has so many elements. It is largely the story of herself, a developing, maturing teenager, and the people she interacts with on a daily basis. But as the Nazis take over and she is forced to go into hiding with her family, there is a sharp feeling of change. It is still her story, a very personal story. And yet, permeating her story at every point is this sense of something very dangerous all around, constantly threatening to encroach. We already know most or all of what the Nazis did as they occupied much of Europe, but Anne's diary is a historical document in the sense that it provides a unique, deeply personal perspective on how that time effected a very few people. Some people wil say that history is mainly told in the big events, but I disagree. History means little if we can't see how it effects even the most unlikely, otherwise unknown people. In reading Anne's diary, I could see history's effect on the individual more clearly than ever before.
And yet her writing itself is quite good as well. It's fairly good when the diary begins, with her at age 13. It is even better when it ends, shortly after she turns 15. She had a talent for description and an eye for detail that is rare in any writer, and she was very honest in her feelings, opinions, and experiences. We get her impressions of the Germans and the occupation, of course, but we also get the stories of her squabbles with her family and with the other members of the "Secret Annex." We get the stories of arrests and raids, but also the story of Anne's impending menstruation and developing sense of sexuality. We hear about food shortages, but also about what she learned during her stay in the Annex, academically and otherwise.
In the end, reading Anne's diary feels wrong in a way, because it is the very personal thoughts of a young girl who is struggling to express herself, and confiding in a receiver who was never meant to be a real person. And yet, now millions have read her thoughts. It is -- I can't stress this enough -- a story of a maturing teenager. In a sense, it could be the story of my babysitter, or even eventually of my own daughters a few years down the road. However, it is also a story told under circumstances that would make most teenagers (and adults) cower in fear. The fact that Anne had the presence of mind and the strength and the courage to write down this document makes this one of the most important diaries ever written.
I won't soon forget it.
Book Review: Devastatingly emotional and heartfelt.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" has been with me for nearly 10-years. I first read this book at the age of ten, again at thirteen, and I've just read it again. My first review, written nearly three-years-ago, was written in haste, as I just wanted to add reviews to my About You Area. I first read it at the age of ten for school, after a teacher noticed my immense interest in the Holocaust (which lasted for nearly six-years straight). When I read it, I was amazed by this girl who seemed so much older than myself (at the time, a thirteen/fourteen/fifteen-year-old seemed greatly older) - a girl who lived the most effervescent years of her life in near solitary, only to be killed after yearning so much from herself and life. I read it again three years later, at the age of thirteen - the age Anne Frank started her diary. It was then that I felt a true connection with her, as we shared the same views about our parents, school, writing, and life. I felt one with her, and my fascination with the Holocaust deepened, sending me on a whirlwind of research and learning more about the Jewish religion. I kept this book on my bookshelf for years, and when it was chosen as a selection in the book club I am apart of, I was overwhelmed with excitement, wondering what I would take away with it, years after my last two readings. I was able to see the girlish immaturity of Anne Frank, which had seemed so mature when I had last read it, and I saw the immense emotional distraught she was experiencing, and how adults say everything is a "phase"; whether an outburst is or not, they should be dealt with seriously. I was also able to appreciate her fantastic writing skills and thought provoking deliberations. People say that this book does not portray the horrors of the Holocaust. This diary does, in the most haunting way. We can read inside the emotional thoughts of a young girl, when she herself was hidden away from the world - a girl who did not truly understand what the world was like for Jews, and what her fate would turn out to be, as she was hidden away in what was thought of as a safe refuge. People think that if a book does not deal directly with a gas chamber or a concentration camp, then it is not about the Holocaust. How wrong they are! This is not a book, but a girl's life written down in ink on pages, and it boggles my mind how people can be utterly disrespectable and say it's "boring" and "just a teen girl's musings." I implore you to take a closer look, and see if you could so eloquently put your thoughts and fears about things we do in our lives everyday (learn, use the lavatory, cook and eat), only minus the enormous, impending fear that life could end with one knock on your door (a fear I hope we never have to experience). I recommend this gut-wrenching diary.