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5.0 out of 5 stars
Johnson's book offers fresh light into one of our darkest eras., November 28, 2007
This review is from: Being Frank With Anne (Paperback)
The key term in education today is "differentiation." It holds that educators must provide alternate avenues of learning outside of the textbook. When I challenge my students with a writing assignment it's inevitable that a few will ask to create a poem instead of the typical essay. Once I grant permission I instantly hear other students flip their pages over and abandon their nearly-finished first paragraphs. The point being: Students connect with poetry.
I am a middle school teacher in an urban district and during our final assessments, when students are given the option to write an essay from several topics learned throughout the year, the overwhelming majority choose to write about the Holocaust.
With that, I am glad that someone finally created a book combining two of the typical student's favorite areas of learning. Most students won't randomly pick up a copy of "The Diary of Anne Frank" because it's 300+ pages. However, when a student is inspired and curious, obstacles cease to exist.
That's what "Being Frank with Anne" offers. A stimulating collection of poems based on the interpretation of Anne's diary, this book provides bite-sized insights into what it was like living in the Secret Annex for two years. This eloquently written book serves as the perfect diving board into the most significant event of our past century.
Michael James D'Amato, author of "The Classroom"
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful Tribute to an Innocent Victim, August 7, 2011
This review is from: Being Frank With Anne (Paperback)
In Being Frank With Anne, Phyllis Johnson sets The Diary of Anne Frank to music in the most touching and sensitive ways, expressing the joys and the sorrows of a young girl in confinement along with those around her. Each poem generally stays to under a page, capturing the essence of a diary entry for a particular day in densely packed lines of meaning. The fear of being discovered is expressed in such lines as "Your heart hammers/ out a rhythmic / thank you for /not being / discovered / one more time." Her longing for freedom in the tense moments of an air raid is interpreted as"[an] itch for / freedom and / fleas, amidst / teeth clenching, / tear jerking air raids." Again, reflecting on the whole situation, "Optimism and pessimism / fly side-by-side, like a twin engine jet. / Will it suck in a bird / of conflict / and crash?" I read the Diary in school over twenty years ago, but these poems brought back the emotions I felt the day I read it, with the addition of a lyrical beauty that an excellent poet like Phyllis Johnson could deliver. Highly recommended.
Robert H. Sarkissian, author of The Wind Coughed At Dawn
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Being Frank With Anne: From A Fourteen Year Old Girl, December 5, 2009
This review is from: Being Frank With Anne (Paperback)
For her thirteenth birthday on 12 June 1942, Anne Frank, received a book she had shown her father in a shop window a few days earlier. Although it was an autograph book, bound with red-and-green plaid cloth and with a small lock on the front, Anne decided she would use it as a diary.
In "Being Frank with Anne" Phyllis Johnson, brings us new insight on Anne Frank, and her short-lived life. Taking an entry from Anne Frank's personal diary "Kitty" Johnson, gives us the poetic take on what happened on that day, in Anne Frank's life. Being a fourteen year old girl, myself, I can relate to Anne, and her feelings of being misunderstood, and wanting to achieve the greater things that life has to offer.
In this beautifully, written collection of poems, you will feel pain; when Anne feels pain. You will feel longing; when Anne is yearning for something that is not in her reach. And you will feel happiness; in the moments that Anne felt any happiness at all. Phyllis Johnson gives us this book with over one hundred, heartfelt poems that will touch you deep inside, and leave you with a new understanding and perspective on what emotion was behind that diary entry, so many years ago. This book is a must have for any fan of Anne Frank, Phyllis Johnson, Poetry, or just the love of an all-around great book. You will not be sorry you read this book. You will be grateful to have read a book about something as important and touching, as Anne Frank.
"I finally realized that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that's what I want! I know I can write ..., but it remains to be seen whether I really have talent...
And if I don't have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that. I can't imagine living like Mother, Mrs. van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! ... I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that's inside me! When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that's a big question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?"
Anne Frank, wrote, on Wednesday, 5 April 1944,
Yes, Anne. You did write something great. And Phyllis Johnson keeps your voice going for many years to come.
-Angel Snyder,
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