A review by jennifermreads
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

… I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. --Anne Frank

It is a testament to Anne’s writing skill that, every time I re-read The Diary of a Young Girl, and I get to the D-Day entry, I begin to hold my breath, hoping that, this time, the diary will end differently. This time, she will live. But, alas, she does not. We still live in a world where Anne Frank perished in Bergen-Belsen and we only were blessed to know her because her father saw fit to share her diaries as she intended. 

My husband and I are preparing for a journey overseas that will include a stop in Amsterdam. I secured tickets to visit the Annex and know that the day will be one where I am overwhelmed with emotion. Having read, many times, Anne’s description of the attic living quarters, I will finally get to see the space with my own eyes and breathe within the space where she and her family lived prior to their arrest. 

Anne’s diary is filled to bursting with memorable quotes. Whether one reads the edition her father published, the one that so many have read as part of a school lesson plan, or the longer, less edited versions of The Definitive Edition or The Critical Edition, what comes through again and again is that Anne was just like any other teen, experiencing the emotions, growing pains, and dramas we all go through in those years. She just happened to do those things within the confines of the annex, crammed in with seven other people. 

If only she had lived. It would be incredible to hear her thoughts about what she wrote then—and how, sadly, we are still struggling with many of her observations about anti-Semitism and women’s roles, and the world we live in. 
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