Anne Frank:The Diary of a Young Girl

        This book isn't actually a book.It's a diary,a memoir of a young Jewish girl who felt she didn't have someone to really talk to,so she wrote to Kitty,the name she gave her diary.She got Kitty on her 13th birthday and wrote in it for the next two years of her life.The year was 1942 and World War II was one of the main subjects she talked about.It was a hard time for her.Her friends were leaving school and going into hiding.Jews were under strict rules.And then Jews were being taken away to camps where the unspeakable happened.When the Schutzstaffel or the S.S.,a unit of the Nazis,came for Margot,Anne's sister,the Franks packed up and left there home,spreading the rumor that they had left the country only they went into hiding.There hiding place was dubbed the Secret Annexe and that was where the Franks,the Van Daans,and Mr.Dussel stayed for the next two years.
        During the two years that they stayed there,the families had to get used to each other and it's always hard being forced to live in a tight place with someone else.If you share a room with a sibling you can relate.The regular fussing over what belongs to who and aggravating,sleep-depriving snoring.Anne found it especially difficult.She was close with her father but that was it.She and her mother had always had a rocky relationship,but in the Secret Annexe the relationship pretty much dissipated and was replaced with polite indifference.Anne felt everyone was always against her."Why couldn't she be more like Peter(the Van Daans son)and Margot?"Anne wrote that everyone said.And she didn't really like Mrs.Van Daan and Mr.Dussel.Anne had a temper and wrote quite frequently that she would like to slap those two.She felt criticized and that too often she was being compared to her sister.She couldn't understand why they couldn't just accept her as she was,but,Anne was mature and dealt with it it.
         By 1944,a lot of things had changed in the Secret Annexe,especially Anne.She had changed emotionally as well as physically.Her and Peter became good friends,very close,talking a lot about their parents,the War,and the books they read.She and her father grew a little apart and weren't so close as they once were.The War affected not just the outside world,but,also,the Secret Annexe inhabitants.Food supplies were low and air raids were frequent.As Anne's diary came to a close,you could really tell the difference that had happened within her,that she was more mature and independent and intellectual.Her diary ended on a good note and even though she is dead now,her diary left behind a piece of her and she has shared something great with the world.

Zuranica