A Picture Book of Anne Frank

Author: David A. Adler
Publisher: Holiday House
Copyright: 1993
Genre: Biography
Pages: 32
Reading Level: Ages 7 to 9 (Barnes and Noble)
Summary: Anne Frank was born in Germany in 1929. During this time many Germans were losing their jobs and were upset because of all the problems going on. Hitler became prominent as he gave speeches blaming certain people for all the problems. He became Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He blamed many people for the problems but the ones he hated most were the Jews. Anne's family was Jewish and so they fled to Amsterdam, Holland to try and find safety. Her first few years there were happy and good. She was outgoing and did well at her Montessori school. She played the lead role in all the plays and dreamed of becoming a writer or a movie star. But soon, World War II started and the German armies invaded Holland. Anne's family had nowhere to escape to. The Jews were forced to wear yellow stars on their clothes so people would know who they were and Anne was pulled out of her beloved Montessori school and sent to a Jewish secondary school. For her thirteenth birthday, Anne received a book with blank pages. She made it her diary and named it Kitty. A month later her older sister was ordered to report to a labor camp. Anne's family was afraid that if she followed orders they might never see her sister again because sometimes they moved people from those camps to other camps where people died. So, Anne's family went into hiding in a hidden apartment in the building where her father worked. They shared their apartment with four other people who were hiding as well. While in hiding, people brought them food, books and anything else they needed. They had to be very quiet during office hours when people were in the building working and they ate mostly the same food and after being together for so long some of the people in the apartment began to argue a lot. During the eighteen months that they were in hiding, Anne wrote in her diary about news of the war and of her growing love for Peter, a young man who lived in hiding with them. In 1944 the Nazis found their hideout and they were taken to a camp. A month later they were moved to different camps and Anne's father gave them an address in Switzerland to meet at if they were safe at the end of the war. They had been taken to Auschwitz, a death camp. Although they had little food and clothing and Anne had lost weight and her hair had been shaved off, a woman reported that somehow she was "still lively and sweet." However, just a couple of months before the war ended in Europe, and and her sister died from disease and hunger. Anne was only fifteen years old. Her father was the only one from the apartment that lived through the war. Someone found Anne's diary in Amsterdam and gave it to her father. It was later published so that people could see and learn from the tragedies of war and hate.
Who would you recommend this book to? I would recommend this book to older children. It's a good book to help them understand how terrible war and hate are. It can help them to see the things that people suffered and learn to love all people.
Potential problems or conflicts: This book might be a little scary or too sad for some young children. It talks a little bit about the camps and all the kinds of people who were discriminated against. The thematic elements might be a little scary to some young children. I would definitely recommend that an adult be ready to talk to their kids about the book after reading it.
My reaction: I really liked this book. I think it was written well so that it's okay for children to read but still helps them understand the terrible things that happened. I think this was a great biography.