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: 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: The "Secret Annexe"
Summary: 4 Stars
Anne Frank is a Jew who is faced in a lot of discrimination, so they moved in order to avoid the German soldiers out to harm Jewsish people. Anne Frank, her family, a dentist, and another family travel to the "Secret Annexe" to stay hidden from the Germans. Anne and her family have to get along with the Van Danns, for their family cannot stand them for they always comment on everything they say or do. She is very independent, loves to learn, get new books, and write in her diary, Kitty. Her best friend is her diary, Kitty, which she writes in almost daily in her life. They Frank's await the time when World War Two will end, so they can return home once again. I recommend this book to people who love descriptive and fascinating stories from long ago.
In this book Anne Frank never has anyone on her side when she is in trouble. When Anne was looking at her sister, Margot's, book her mother came in there and scolded her about borroring things without asking, when all she was doing was looking at it. Also her father always listens to his wife like when she was scolding Anne about stealing people's things, he just barged in and started to make it worse than it already was. Another person who doesn't care for her is Mrs. Van Dann who always tells Anne at the dinner table that she is correct and she is wrong.
This book is filled with many facts about the lives of Jews during World War Two long ago. One way this book describes Jews hardships is when it told how many coupons they get for food compared to Germans, for they were less in power. Another point they stated about the Jews was that they often deserted their homes to get away from the Germans capturing and killing them. The final way this novel told about the life of Jews during World War Two was when they got news from back home saying that the Germans had came and captured many Jews, women, children,and men and taken them away to jails in Germany.
During Anne and her families life they have faced a lot of problems. One problem the Frank family faced was evacuating their homes to get to safety and leaving a lot of their belongings behind to a friend. Another hardship they faced was not having a mattress to sleep on at night so they barely ever got sleep during the night. The worst hardship they faced was not being able to leave the "Secret Annexe", so for years they never smelt a bit of fresh air.
Anybody who loves books filled with interesting and true facts about World World Two and the life of Jews long ago, this is the novel for you. This book is filled with many sad stories about how Anne Frank was treated. Their were also many hardships faced on the Frank family and their friends for they didn't have much, for they left it back at home. Also there are many true and interesting facts about the life of Jews and the bombs of the Germans daily.
T.Brown
Book Review: Memory of Anne Frank
Summary: 3 Stars
The story "Anne Frank: The diary of a young Girl" by Anne Frank is a story about Anne's life as a little Jewish girl living in hiding with a group of seven other Jewish people during World War Two. In her diary Anne expresses her thoughts and feelings almost every day in her diary. Anne received her diary for her birthday and named it Kitty. Anne named her diary Kitty because of the possibility of someone reading her diary, this way no one would know who she was talking to. Anne's diary is very important because it is one of the few personal historical documents of that time and situation because the others were destroyed. I can relate to Anne Frank for many reasons. The number one reason is her odd but impressive outlook on life that Anne expresses throughout her diary for the two years in hiding. Anne's feelings on topics such as boys, family, and the future are very similar to children all around the world today. Anne seems to be picky about boys, and Anne doesn't like the boys her mother likes. In the story Anne mentions that her mother would like her to marry some boy that Anne finds annoying and disgusting. Anne loves her family even her mother who she constantly argues with. Anne and her mother fight all the time making her mother feel Anne did not like her. Anne looks at the future with hope and fear just like children today. Anne hopes that things will get better and fears that things will get worse.
The dates are an important part of the book. For example, the first diary entry takes place Sunday, June 14, 1942. This was Anne's birthday. After that day until Anne's diary ends on August 4, 1944, Anne shares her arrival into hiding, her arguments, her first kiss, and information on the war. On the very last page of the book we are told that on "March 1945, two months before the liberation of Holland, Anne died in the concentration camp." After sharing Anne's feelings, her entire life story, and her hopes and dreams as I came to the end of her diary I hoped things would end up okay for Anne and her family, but in reality the end of Anne's life was only two months after the end of this story. Anne did not end up with the happy ending that she deserved.
This novel was a big wake up call that reminded me that not everyone has got it good. I would recommend this book to every boy and girl in the United States to remind him or her of Hitler's cruel ways and the struggle that he put Jewish men, woman, and children through. My recommendations are to read the story "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl" and to think how hard it really was for not only the people in hiding but the poor people that were stolen from their homes and placed in dirty concentration camps and killed for no particular reason at all. This is a great book and a great learning experience.
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.