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Business Stationary Mart - Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
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List Price: $5.99
Our Price: $1.80
Your Save: $ 4.19 ( 70% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Bantam
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 949.2071092
EAN: 9780553296983
ISBN: 0553296981
Label: Bantam
Manufacturer: Bantam
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 1993-06-01
Publisher: Bantam
Release Date: 1993-06-01
Studio: Bantam
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A bright soul in a dark time
Comment: I have finally, at the age of 33, gotten around to reading Anne Frank's diary. There is little point in adding another glowing review. Everything has been said. But after reading some of the negative reviews, I feel compelled to respond. It seems there are two primary criticisms (Three if you count the ridiculous idea that the diary is a forgery, which I won't dignify). The first is that Anne doesn't talk a lot about the war or the holocaust. To this, I can only say, that's all for the better. She was a thirteen year girl living in total isolation from the rest of the world. She really had no special expertise or light to shed on these subjects. There are many excellent history books on both of these subjects. The second criticism is simply that the book is boring. She talks too much about her day to day life, her thoughts, her feelings, and so on. To this I can only say, what part of "Diary of a Young Girl" is ambiguous? The annex was her entire world. What do you expect her to write about?
What a few don't seem to understand is that this is not a "book about World War II", or even about the holocaust. If that is what she had written about, the diary wouldn't even be a footnote in history. This is the story of one young girl, in her own voice, trying to figure out what it means to live, to grow, and to be human in the most depraved and inhumane circumstances. She wrote about her hopes, her dreams, her fears, and occasionally about peeling potatoes. But the thing that some people don't see is that even when writing about the most mundane topics, she was actually writing about people, about how they endure and falter, about how they come together and how they fall apart. And despite the enormous injustice she endured, she always made the case for optimism, for hope in humanity, and for love of life. I don't know that I can agree with her, having adopted a more cynical outlook, but that just increases my admiration for her and my shame in myself for not living the gift of live to the fullest.
The other thing that stands out is the maturity of the writing. After reading just the first entry, I was blown away by the eloquence and clarity of Anne's writing. I could hardly believe that I was reading the prose of a 13 year old girl. She does write a lot about the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl, but the voice of the writing does not feel childish at all, except perhaps in its optimism. The world lost a great talent and a brilliant soul to those murderous barbarians.
This is a difficult book to digest, and two days after finishing, I'm still haunted by it. Anne's optimism, faith, and courage inspired me throughout, but made the knowledge of what would come at the end all the more a bitter pill to swallow. All that we can do is to honor her by making sure her story and the story of millions of holocaust victims are never forgotten and never happen again. So far, we're not doing so well with that.
And there, I've done it. I've written a review. I didn't intend to, but I did. So go out and read it, if you haven't.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Diary of Anne Frank
Comment: I knew that the Diary of Anne Frank was the second most purchased book in the world, the Bible being the first, but I still wasn't sure if I wanted to read it.
In our eighth grade class, our teacher is big on the Holocaust. And when she first mentioned that we would be learning about it, I was excited; to a point. I know that most kids my age think 'ooh blood and guts and gore' and think it's cool or funny or a joke. They all watch horror movies that almost make them immune to real life experiences that involve real horror or real tragedy.
So before we started learning about it, I wanted to know more in depth about how it was like to be a teen during the Holocaust. So, I summed up the guts and checked it out at the library. When I started reading it, I couldn't stop. Anne and I are so similar. She's always happy-go-lucky despite the terrible circumstances; she's very curious, careless, and sometimes a trouble maker. And even though I'm not Jewish, I think it's extremely easy to worm your way into her shoes. You learn so much, and it's really emotional, knowing that Anne Frank, this person you've grown attatched to, and her family, everyone except her father Otto Frank, has been killed. Slaughtered innocently by the Nazis, a cult led by Hitler that cornered them just because of their religion or their looks.
I think that if anyone wants to learn about the Holocaust, this is a must read; it's an amazing journey that might not end so happily, but Anne never ceased to hope. It has such vivid details of everything that sometimes it's hard to believe that something like the concentration camps and Hitler and everything existed. The fact that it's in diary form makes it all the better.
This non-fiction diary is amazing, and I think everyone, at some point, should read it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: awesome book, sad story
Comment: a wonderful story told by an innocent child.
it is a must read for all generations
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good example of what it means to be a Refugee.
Comment: I am presently living like a refugee, so I can say from experience this is a good way to understand what it means to be stuck in a room for four years, having done that myself.
This is what happens when wars get out of hand. Required reading for government workers.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Another School Reading, Re-Read As An Adult
Comment: Sometimes you wonder to what purpose a person releases the details of a love ones life after death. This is just such a case. I will admit, I did not read the book as instructed in school, or many of the books forced upon us. As an adult, I went back and read many of them to see what I had missed (like the Red Badge of Courage, Uncle Toms Cabine, Tom Sawyer, etc.). This book from the hype would seem to be a literary masterpiece, rather, what it turns out to be is a rudementarry, and purposely selected piece of a little girls journal. If the purpose of the book was to delve into the mind of a teenage girl of the 1940's who does not get on well with her family or others, and seem a bit spoiled, it is a glowing success. The problem here is that it is meant to showcase a little girl in hiding from the Nazi's during WWII. To this it fails in that it merely touches on those issues (other than the ad nauseum complaints that Anne Frank makes about her inconveniences). I also get the feeling that this was severly edited to make the father look better than he was (in that he released the book), while making everyone else the villan. I guess this book is timeless in that most teenagers today have the same rants and raves. If you are reading it looking for historical perspective of a Jewish teen in hiding, you will not get much more than the backdrop which leaks through every now and again, since all the rest could truly be the rants of a teen of any generation. I know this review will be unpopular since this book is considered a modern day classic from our generation, I just feel there are numerous books that are far better at demostrating the attrocities, and difficulties of living through World War II, and going into hiding as a Jew during that time period. I was dissapointed.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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