The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank

Wow! Was this a great book. For a 13 year old girl, she was extremely bright and insightful. I know I wasn't as well informed or as intellectual as she was at that age. I went back and looked at my journals from that time and was mortified at the difference. Different times I guess. I also didn't have the threat of Ethnic Cleansing facing me.

I feel like a dieter who has cheated on her diet. I really wanted to read this book even though it is not on my reading list. It's not a novel even though it reads like one. It is a autobiography that details The Frank Family and the Van Pel family's adventure in hiding from the Germans. I know a lot about the holocaust and even studied Holocaust Literature at the graduate level, but, believe it or not, I had never read this account. It's like not reading Dr. Suess as a little kid. That's how important this piece of literature is.

What I found even more fascinating than the book was a documentary on Anne Frank (I found it at the Grocery Store of all places) narrated by Kenneth Branaugh, with Glenn Close reading bits from her Diary. The interesting part of this documentary was that it finished the story where Anne's Diary abruptly ends (they were arrested and taken to a concentration camp on August 3, 1945). Everyone in the Hiding Place died except for Otto Frank, Anne's father. Most of that part of the story is widely known. But what is not as widely known is that she could have potentially survived. There was one selection that she did not attend because Margot, her sister was ill. She chose to stay with her in the barracks. Unfortunately, it was at this selection that women were chosen to go to a work camp and all of the women who were selected survived the Holocaust.

Can you imagine what she could have done with her life had she lived!? She wanted to be a writer and journalist. She wanted to do something bigger with her life. She has done something pretty big already. It is hard to imagine what more she would have done had she survived.

What a good read. I am going to make my teens read it. It would be good for them to see what other teens in different situations have had to deal with.