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Title: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
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Manufacturer: Bantam
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| Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Bantam A Must Read for Any Teenager Today | While daydreaming in class, do you ever place yourself in the shoes of another of another thirteen year old? Perhaps another teenager in a different historical era? "The Diary of Anne Frank" would allow you to do just that. This diary tells the story of a thirteen year old Jewish girl, forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust with her family of four. Making entries every day, Anne writes of her life in hiding; documenting her feelings of love, the noises of gunshots outside her house and the changes her body and spirit continue to experience as she develops into a teenager. She writes of normal "becoming a teenager obstacles" such as her parents treating her unfairly, the other family always picking on her and a lonely existence in the confined space. This book does a splendid job of describing the drama that enfolds with eight people living in tight quarters. Just as many of you may have felt trapped in your teenage life, Anne's is magnified in the "Secret Annex" of a room.
I believe that this book is more real than any other narrative or memoir can be due to Anne's innocence without worrying about the outside critics. It leaves itself for you to easily empathize with the hardships of Anne with her honest accounts of observations, memories, feelings and troubles any teenager experiences, in addition to the complexity of her tragic situation. I highly recommend this book to any teenager who hopes to understand life's hardest lessons. If there was one negative about the book, it would be the repetitive nature of some of the entries. Many of the entries seem quite monotonous, but isn't this true of most teenagers' lives? Although this book is 304 pages, it is a quick read with it unlikely you would want to put it down. Published in 1993 by Bantam, it still applies this day to any teenager. | | Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Bantam A glimpse into the life of Anne Frank | "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. | | Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Bantam ACH, DU LIEEEEEEEBEEEEEERRRRR!!!! Why, oh, why ist das Diary des Anne Frank oh-sooooo FRIGGIN' Laaaaaaaaaaangweeeeeeeeil ig?!?!? | ACH, DU LIEBER!!!!
That's the biting phrase that can best epitomize my personal feelings at the disconnect between the expectation of Anne Frank's diary and the actual reality of reading it. The Diary of Anne Frank is very, very, very disappointing and a humongous letdown!!!! To wit, I must implacably question and hold in contempt the judgment processes of the many, previous, sycophant reviewers who've been exaggerating the "beauty" or "grace" or whatever politically correct term of flattery they can invent for this diary. The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most caustic examples of herd mentality-syndrome and mass hysteria among the many positive-rating, Amazon reviewers. In truth, this diary of Anne's is just plain, bloody awful and doesn't deserve its classic status to say the least!!!! I suppose the hordes of five-star reviewers simply turned off their brains, refused to analyze Anne's diary critically, and just subserviently jumped on the bandwagon of conventional wisdom, where her diary is hailed a "classic." BS!!!!
After having thoroughly read this, I can assure you that it's no classic and D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y not worth your time or money...unless, of course, you get your kicks and jollies from plumbing the trivial and superficial mind of a fourteen-year-old. This stellar, brutally-but-intellectually-honest review of mine will analytically break down precisely what the hell's wrong with Anne's diary (plenty!) and warn you against reading it. If you're not narrow-minded and can take an analysis which intrepidly contravenes the discreditable conventional wisdom of the masses, then you'll be grateful for this review. If you're a hypersensitive sheeple, then I expect you to be appalled and shocked at the alleged "audacity" of this review, but that's YOUR problem, not mine. All I concern myself with is an intellectually honest review of this diary.
I went into The Diary of Anne Frank because it came to my attention that I hadn't read it in high school, whereas many of my peers had indeed had it mandated for reading in school. I attended a Catholic high school, and it's not like Catholics have something even remotely to be shameful about concerning their treatment of Jews in WWII. Why, in fact, educated people know that even N*zi Adolf Eichmann confessed in his diaries that the Catholic Church in occupied Italy was the only organization that loudly protested and opposed the mass deportation of Jews from their "ghetto" in Rome. So, I wanted to catch up on this apparent "classic" because it was missed reading at my old, Catholic high school.
However, I absolutely regret and curse this misjudgment of mine due to the appalling quality and shortcoming of the content of the diary. See, as a new reader, I perceptively went into the Diary of Anne Frank with the reasonable expectation that it would, you know, perhaps talk about her feelings relating to--I don't know!--the genocidal, N*zi occupation, which had forced her family and some acquaintances into an attic, where they lived like imprisoned animals under extreme duress. That would make for an interesting read obviously because one would delve into the psychology of a person in such duress and try to relate. Conventional wisdom has it that that's what her diary mainly relates to, but in actuality...her diary's actually filled to the nauseating brim with her infatuation (nah, kids these days would call it her "crushing) on her attic-mate Peter; endlessly boring stories about preparing and storing vegetables in their attic; girl talk about her prior crush before she went into hiding; lurid tales about her discovering her budding sexuality; typical teen-girl angst about how she's never really had close girlfriends; grumbling about the adults in the attic always rebuking her due to her forthrightness; and how she hates her mother like a typical EMO teenager, just to name a few!!!!
Anne disappointingly spends precious few entries (the vast minority) on the more interesting and valuable ruminations, such as those on human nature, persecution of Jews, and the terror felt inside the attic that came primarily from being discovered, or from the sounds and sights of war breaking loose outside her attic (on a couple of entries, she even recounts stories of downed fighter planes and their pilots' fate). That's the unpardonable fault of her diary because only these kinds of idiosyncratic entries actually material to WW2 are what would elevate her diary above that of any other, mundane, teen girl's. That so much of her diary is precisely so ordinary according to what one stereotypically expects from ANY teen girl's entries is the real pity in this exaggeratedly hyped work.
I found the purpose of Anne's diary much more useful in detailing how more wonderfully conservative society was in the 40s--rather than getting the reader to empathize with WW2-era, persecuted Jews--compared to today's liberal nightmare. In example, Anne's many entries where she's "crushing" on her attic-mate, Peter, involve feelings of sincere, simplistic affection and puppy love, maybe quaint but still adorable in hindsight. For instance, in many entries, Anne swoons over attic-mate Peter's confiding in her or the way he merely looks at her; to her as a girl in the 40s back then, that already qualified as a "fantasy." Contrast this to the inarguable fact that in today's world, many 14-year-olds in Anne's shoes would probably have infectious thoughts of desiring to sexually please their crushes (and then do so!) just so they could feel like "true women!" Another unmistakable motif in Anne's experiences that comes through as a confirmation of how more wonderfully conservative things were back then is the constant reference to schoolwork, and, by golly, actually doing well at it! In some entries, Anne actually *gulp* takes pride in getting good grades in school and measuring herself as a person based on her work ethic in class, again, wonderfully "old-fashioned." Again, contrast this with many 14-year-olds today who--especially if they're in the NEA's public schools--can't read, write or do any `rithmetic, yet can tell you all kinds of things about the b*tches and h*es in rap music!!!!
This latest edition of her diary, The so-called Definitive Edition, includes inexcusably AWKWARD entries involving Anne's sexual awakening, which is also a discomforting sign of the incrementing liberalism that's occurring societally, whereas her dad, Otto, wisely omitted these lewd entries from the original publication. For instance, on page 162, she writes, "Once when I was spending the night at Jacque's, I could no longer restrain my curiosity about her body, which she'd always hidden from me and which I'd never seen. I asked her whether, as proof of our friendship, we could touch each other's br*asts. Jacque refused. I also had a terrible desire to kiss her, which I did. Every time I see a female nude...I go into ecstasy." Gross!!!! This egregiously has nothing to do with WW2, or a person's feelings of being imprisoned in an attic while hoping the N*zis don't discover her. The inclusion of this lewdness was utterly ill-advised.
Surprisingly, though, some of Anne's entries include reflections which prove she possessed moral clarity and, unlike today's liberals (the arbiters of moral relativism), had the ability to judge between good and evil with regards to WW2. For instance, on page 334 (from July 21, 1944), she writes, "Now, at last, things are going well!...An *ss*ssination attempt has been made on H*tler's life, and for once not by Jewish Communists or English capitalists, but by a German general...This is the best proof we've had so far that many officers and generals are fed up with the war and would like to see H*tler sink into a bottomless pit..." Here, Anne clearly demonstrates that she confidently feels it's perfectly all right to be happy at the prospect of your enemy being killed in a war. Further, she also interprets the *ss*ssination attempt in a pro-Allies, anti-German way, suspecting that H*tler's generals are turning on him. Contrast that to today's dreadful, modern liberals who would have a hell of a hard time rejoicing about the prospect of Bin Laden's death or any terrorist's, for that matter, because they're too obsessed with getting them "legal rights" through habeas corpus and moving them onto the US mainland for detention purposes!!!!
Still, Anne's diary is soooo disappointingly off-the-mark that I want anyone even flirting with the idea of reading a fourteen-year-old's musings to just boycott it. It's so dreadful because it mostly evades reflecting on WW2 and the hardships of attic life. Mainly, it reads like every other fourteen-year-old girl's diary from the beginning of time to infinity, and, so, is an absolutely superficial read!!!! To get an idea of how WW2 affected people, you can get a better read almost ANYWHERE ELSE. If you want to get inside a fourteen-year-old girl's trivial head--which Anne's diary is really mostly about: crushes, boys, resentment of parents, etc.--you should just steal your kid sister's. What's that? Don't have a kid sister?! Well, then steal the diary of your friend's or neighbor's kid sister because you'll get the same trivialities there as in Anne Frank's diary. | | Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Bantam Moving, poignant | | Great read, highly recommend for all jr. high and Sr. high kids. I read this book in high school (many many years ago) and wanted to read it again because of the movie "Freedom Writers" and it's integral part in the movie. I highly recommend it | | Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Bantam A classic! | | A classic that we all should read when we are young, and again when we are older. It emphasizes the fact that evil does exist in our world, and that evil often comes from a government. It belongs in all of our libraries. | | Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Bantam Product Description | | Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic -- a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the "Secret Annex" of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short. | | Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Bantam Amazon.com | | A beloved classic since its initial publication in 1947, this vivid, insightful journal is a fitting memorial to the gifted Jewish teenager who died at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in 1945. Born in 1929, Anne Frank received a blank diary on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Her marvelously detailed, engagingly personal entries chronicle 25 trying months of claustrophobic, quarrelsome intimacy with her parents, sister, a second family, and a middle-aged dentist who has little tolerance for Anne's vivacity. The diary's universal appeal stems from its riveting blend of the grubby particulars of life during wartime (scant, bad food; shabby, outgrown clothes that can't be replaced; constant fear of discovery) and candid discussion of emotions familiar to every adolescent (everyone criticizes me, no one sees my real nature, when will I be loved?). Yet Frank was no ordinary teen: the later entries reveal a sense of compassion and a spiritual depth remarkable in a girl barely 15. Her death epitomizes the madness of the Holocaust, but for the millions who meet Anne through her diary, it is also a very individual loss. --Wendy Smith |
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