Have you ever heard of “The Diary of Anne Frank”? If you haven’t, the book follows a young girl named Anne and her family as they have to go into hiding from the Nazis. They stay in hiding for many years but are eventually caught.
We follow the viewpoint of a young girl, Anne Frank, and her family, including her father, Mr. Frank, her mother, Mrs. Frank, and her sister, Margot. Although they go into hiding, we are introduced to new characters, such as Mr. and Mrs. Vann Dann, Peter Vann Dann, their son, and the two caregivers, Mr. Kraler and Miep. The Franks are all overall nice, though the Vann Danns start nice, they quickly get irritated with hiding and become hateful towards Anne.
The plot of this book circles Anne, a young girl in hiding with her family, hiding from Hitler’s regime and arrest. The family is later joined by another family, the Vann Danns, where they all hide for around 2 years before getting caught and arrested. After their arrest, they are sent to a work camp to work until they are either dead or too hurt to work. They spend their nights and days working, only taking breaks to eat and sleep. Eventually, they are all killed, leaving only Mr. Frank to survive, who later publishes the diary to the world.
Some conflicts we see are internal, such as Anne’s fight inside herself to find her identity, or as she is fighting with herself about having a relationship with Peter, as she wonders what others would think. Some external conflicts in the book are Mr. and Mrs. Vann Dann fighting, Mrs. Vann Dann judging Anne for being in a relationship with Peter, and Mrs. Vann Dann being rude to Anne about how she acts. These conflicts all shape how Anne acts throughout the book.
The theme of the diary is to be optimistic. As we go through the book, we see that Anne is never really angry about being stuck in hiding, and she seems to be rather happy with her situation. Even through multiple years of being inside and around the same people, she isn’t really annoyed much, as she tries to make the most of it by writing in her diary or hanging out with Peter. Even when she’s captured, she’s still happy as she gets to see the sun and touch the grass; she enjoys all of the little things in life, and that’s the theme of this book.
I think this book is very nice and really sheds light on the conditions of the Holocaust. It also helps us understand the day-to-day life of some of the people in hiding at that time. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes history. While it is repetitive at times, it is still a nice book.
