Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Mass Market Paperback – June 1, 1993

I first read this book (the edited down version) when I was nine years old, I received the book as a gift, and again when I was twelve for school. I recently re-read the book (the new un-edited version) and coming from an entirely different perspective now that I am a thirty year old mother.

First, I want to say that I absolutely believe that this book should still be included in school curriculum. The only thing 'new' about it is that pages and passages were added. Nothing was taken out and the translation was not changed. Reports that the book is so different that it's nothing like the original are false. Reports that the story is different are false.

There is no reason for the edited version to still be used because children read Anne Frank's diary around ages 11-14 years old which was around age when Anne herself was writing the diary. Anything that could be seen as supposedly "inappropriate" can be seen on daytime television with a PG or maybe PG-13 rating. Especially these days, there's definitely nothing in there that is beyond the norm for the average tween-teen. I think that continuing to use an edited version is insulting to Anne Frank's memory. Not only that, but it provides valuable information about the time period and gives more relateability to the diary.

The passages which are included in the new version are not anything that the average 8-12 year old girl does not already know about her own body and the "birds and the bees", and are so few and short that they comprise a tiny percentage of the work itself. The romance between herself and Peter is very chaste and nothing untoward happens in the story. (Spoiler: they hold hands and a kiss a few times. that's it.) The passages that some see as inappropriate are not at all titillating, a medical textbook is more erotic. Coming from a mom's point of view, I would definitely allow my daughter to read the unedited book.

I think this should stay on school book lists because some kids these days see the Holocaust as something that happened a long time ago that is meaningless now, without realizing that genocides and racial motivated violence still happens every day. I think it seems to them like just another thing they have to learn about along with The Hundred Years War and the Crusades.

Anne Frank's diary gives kids perspective and helps makes the tragic loss of life during WWII a tangible thing they can understand. The diary is so relate-able and reflects so many feelings that all teens have had, that she becomes three dimensional to them and no longer a just some person that died a long time ago. This sensitivity towards the loss of a life is what we need now in the times we live in.

As we read the diary we see how much potential was lost not only in Anne but in her entire family. Anne Frank was an intelligent and well-read young woman who studied multiple languages and had an analytical mind. I believe we lost a shining beacon of women's intelligence when she died. She was an emerging feminist, activist, and writer! I think she would have been an amazing woman who would have gone on to do great things. All that potential was lost millions of times over during WWII, and this is what we feel deep in our hearts upon closing the book.

Most of the book is about the privations and hardship of living hidden away in the "annex". There is very little coverage of the violence of the times or much that is going on in the outside world because they had little knowledge of it since they were hidden. I think this is partly why some schoolchildren report the diary is boring. It does get repetitive at times, which reflects the feelings of those living in hiding. They had to wait and wait in fear, not knowing what the next day would bring.

There are many self-reflective passages where Anne laments being picked on by the adults in the annex, wondering if she will live up to the expectations they have for her, hoping she can reach her goals. There is a thread of hope apparent even in her most depressing writings. I think these are the parts I think teens find most relate-able because all teens want to achieve things, please their parents, and find hope in their moments of despair.

Toward the end of the diary we see just how difficult things have become for the family which is not always accurately represented in the movie versions of the diary. They were starving, never full at meals, and having to exist off moldy and tasteless food. There was one bathroom for eight people and at times the toilet could not be flushed. They had threadbare, holey clothing which was too small. The cat used the bathroom wherever it wanted towards the end, and their helpers came less and less frequently as circumstances got worse and worse. Their conditions deteriorated in ways that children living in the comfort of the 21st century could never imagine. It's so important for kids to read about these conditions and contrast them with their own in order to not only feel grateful but to feel sympathy for those who lived in these terrible times.

The Kindle version had fairly large print and worked just fine on my phone and tablet with no issues. The new version has a new introduction and I believe the epilogue has changed a bit as well. I enjoyed the footnotes feature which allows you to touch the number which takes you to the footnotes page, then when you touch the number again it takes you back to the page you were originally on. I had no problems purchasing or downloading.

If you want to know more about what happened to Anne Frank after the diary, there is a book called "The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank" by Willy Lindwer which includes stories from people who met her in the camps.

Another recommendation is the author Eva Schloss who was Anne Frank's stepsister, who wrote about surviving Auschwitz.

You share Anne's troubles and triumphs, hopes and dreams, and loves and hates. You feel as if you are living in the Secret Annex with Anne yourself. You'll smile at such moments like when Anne and Peter kiss. You'll laugh at Mrs. van Daan's pet peeves. But you'll especially cry. Especially when you read after the actual diary that Anne and the members of the Secret Annex were taken away. Only 1 member survived, Anne's father. You'll cry knowing that poor, young Anne was taken away from her parents and sent to a concentration camp. She died just a little while before the camp was liberated. Peter died just a few days before his camp was liberated. You'll be left thinking "Why couldn't she have lived just a few more days? Why?".

What makes her story so sad is the fact that she had so much to offer, had she lived to maturity. One can almost be certain that she would have had much more to contribute to literature, to history. As it is, we have only this brilliant diary, and what a piece of work it is.

This book is truly a must read

Engrossing. I was taken by surprise as I read Anne's diary. I was expecting to find lots of historical detail about the Holocaust. There is some of that. I was expecting to read the disjointed narrative of loose events. This diary had some of that, too. However, her narrative is a succinct and intimate portrait of two Jewish families, the Franks and the Van Daans, and an unmarried dentist. The diary does begin before her family goes into hiding, on June 12, 1942, but by July 9, Anne begins to chronicle the vicissitudes of the aforementioned families, and her personal reflections. Instead of politics and war, Anne describes quarrels between herself with her mother, Mrs. Van Daan, and Dussel (the dentist), between the Van Daans and the Franks, and between Mrs. Van Daan and Dussel. What makes these accounts astonishing is that Anne describes these quarrels with the irony and maturity of a full-fledged writer, and her tone makes any reader recall the ironies of a Jane Austen narrative (I may go as far as to compare the relationship between Anne and her mother with that of an Elizabeth Bennet with her silly mother in Pride and Prejudice). Only that this is nonfiction, and thus, her rivalry with her mother may be a situation that other teenagers may easily relate to. If Freud had this diary in his hands, he may even go as far as to point out that Anne has an Electra complex (the reverse of the Oedipus complex). Anne makes very clear that she cannot stand her mother and even claims to hate her. She may have modified this "hate" a year and a half later in the same diary, but she still accepts that she can live without her and that she cannot profess the motherly love. Again, she treads in Jane Austen territory when she claims on February 8, 1944 that her father is not in love with her mother, and that he kisses her the way she kisses them. If this had been fiction, one could find parallels with some Austen novels. Equally astonishing is the level of maturity with which she analyses her parents' matrimonial situation, even if her conclusions were wrong and she was just biased toward her father.

In likewise manner, she describes her relationship between herself and Mrs. Van Daan, and the Van Daans. Only a few weeks after their arrival at the secret annex, on September 2, 1942, Anne describes a quarrel between the couple and calls their son lazy, and on September 21, she calls Mrs. Van Daan "unbearable." Her antagonism toward Mrs. Van Daan will be one of her recurring topics throughout the diary. There is also plenty of conflict between her and Dussel with whom she has to share her room; and finally, when she is fourteen and a half, and in love with Peter Van Daan, she turns her adolescent rage against her own father in a letter defending her independence from parental intrusion and her right to see Peter as often as she liked. She may regret this afterwards, but this rebellion shows us an outstanding character trait of hers, an indomitable spirit, and one of the major themes in this diary: generational conflict; the world of adults against youngsters. Since the very beginning, Anne finds her privacy and free will threatened, not only by the external forces of the Nazis, but also by her mother, her sister Margot, Mrs. Van Daan, and Dussel. When on March 2, 1944 she writes, "We aren't allowed to have an opinion" teenagers all over the world will sympathize. Her musings about relationships between youngsters and adults, however, must not be confused with mere griping; her voice is carried by a balance between passion and reason.

Along with the threat of parental intrusion upon her freedoms, she talks in depth about sexuality and the need for courage in the face of adversity; the importance of work and.having goals in life; the roots of happiness; the importance of religion (no matter which religious doctrine one follows); the unfortunate growth of anti-Semitism, and her love for Holland. Each one of her discussions are appropriate for teenagers and adults as she speaks with wisdom. In sexuality, she advocates for sexual education at a young age. She feels no shame for her periods and openly confesses on January 6, 1944 that she is "always looking forward to the time when I'll feel that secret inside me once again." And when she is falling in love with Peter, she announces on February 12, 1944 "I think spring is inside me." In matters of love, she does sound more radical when she claims on March 2, 1944 "Losing your virtue doesn't matter, as long as you know that for as long as you live you'll have someone at your side who understands you..." But the way she reflects on these issues throughout the diary show a desire to balance out her natural teenage impulses with the reasoning of a maturing adolescent, not a rebel without a cause.

Anne also talks about her literary ambitions and she does show her knack for writing with skill. There is a tone of irony in an entry subtitled "Peeling Potatoes," August 10, 1943. Once you've read this section you'll discover that it is more than about peeling potatoes. A clever story is subtitled "Ode to My Fountain Pen: In Memoriam" found on the November 11, 1943 entry. It's about the loss of her fountain pen. She even makes the most out of scary situations when she writes about an attempted break-in into the factory where they are hidden as if she were narrating a suspenseful story. In addition, on many occasions she shows us the sensibility of a poet as she connects with nature even within her confinement: "As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more" she states on February 23, 1944. Later on, on March 7, 1944, she claims her right to beauty in the face of misfortune: "If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance. A person who's happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery."

This does not mean that Anne's diary has nothing to do with the war or with anti-Semtism. Without these two, without the Nazi menace, Anne would have discovered these things sooner in a freer environment (it took her almost two years to explore love and friendship with Peter), she would have developed her skills as a journalist, a poet, and a writer, had not the Nazis and the war existed. And yet, in spite of the overwhelming presence of the Nazis, anti-Semitism, and war, Anne's greatest triumph was being able to reveal the heart of an adolescent with frankness and honesty. Like the great writer of fiction, Jane Austen, Anne Frank found in the tidbits of her conflicts with adults, their everyday quarrels, her bodily needs and intimacy, her desire for affection and love, their disagreements over politics, the voice of all humanity. It is for these reasons, that this diary endures among classics and among must reads for our youth.

A good companion for this book, also sold on Amazon, is the Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography, written by Sid Jacobson, and illustrated by Ernie Colon, because of the historical background for the anti-Jewish laws, the rise of Hitler and Nazis in Germany and Europe, the mass migration of Jews to other parts of the world, genealogical maps of Anne's family, and a map of the secret annex. It also has a timeline of events at the end of the story. Also, some parts of the diary are narrated in graphic format. I recommend both books together.

Her writing was so vivid, almost as if the reader could feel the dismal life she was. forced to live. She described her family and all of the others living with them so well that I felt that I knew them. She shared her deepest thoughts, both the good, bad, and horrible. Anne Franke was an amazing young girl! I was in Amsterdam a year ago and stood outside the annex where the family hid for their last several months. Even if the line for touring it had been short, I couldn't have gone had I read the book before. I know I would have felt very uncomfortable, sad and even more hatred for what Hitller did to the Jews.