Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

★★★★★

It seems inappropriate to review a person's diary, so I'm treating this review more like a book report.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote the introduction in the edition I read, saying this about the book: "Reading it is a rich and rewarding experience." (p. x) And that's just it. This book enriches the life of the person who reads it.

Early on, it was almost prescient the way Anne laid out a simple biography of herself, and wondered who would be interested in what she wrote. From her light-hearted reports of her active social life at age 13, before going into hiding, to her thoughtful introspection from inside "the Secret Annex" at age 15, the diary could not have been better written if its future relevance was known and planned.

Anne Frank was clearly an exceptional teenager. She had more insight and self-awareness than most adults. She explicitly identified her ideals and worked on self-improvement. She understood and articulated the value of hard work and the importance of strength of character. She formulated her own perspectives and philosophies on intelligence, nature, and religion.

I see Anne's diary as an example of humanity in its purest form. Even in hiding, knowing her life was in danger, her day-to-day concerns included typical mother/daughter conflict and musings on boys. She wrote about concentration camps and the Gestapo, too, but she knew that constant focus on the war and the suffering of Jews would break her spirit. She was wise beyond her years in writing, "I don't think then of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains." (p. 154)

We see the statistic that 6 million Jewish people died during World War II, but in reading Anne's diary, we can better understand that it was 6 million individuals, 6 million persons each with potential and value - like Anne - who were lost to the world.

Too frequently I finish a book only to find that there are appendices that I would have appreciated reading sooner, so I'll mention that the edition I have has a 3-part afterword that I'm glad I read in between reading diary entries. Part I was a brief historical summary, providing relevant context for the diary. (Notably, it was truly remarkable how the description of Hitler's rise, written decades ago, was disturbingly similar to Trump's rise.) Part II explained what happened to Anne and the others after the diary ends. Part III described how the book came to be published, how Anne's story has continued to be spread, and how her life has continued to be meaningful, even after her death.