Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl (Summarizer _Nina)

Hi everyone. This is my first blog post since we started The Literature Circles. My group consists of Ana Marija, Claire, Arabela and myself.  We are reading two books; “Anne Frank, the Diary of a Young Girl” and Milkweed. Furthermore, the first novel we have chosen to start reading is in fact Anne Frank. Discovered in the attic where Anne spent the last years of her life, her remarkable diary has since become a world classic reminding us of the horrors of the war.  I will be summarizing the main events that have occurred during the 90 pages read.

In 1942, a thirteen-year-old Anne receives a diary as her birthday present. There she hopes to be able to reveal everything to it, since she feels that she has never truly been able to confide in anyone.  In order to enhance the friend for whom she has waited so long, and to prevent herself from writing bold facts she names the diary Kitty. Furthermore, she describes several of her friends and her everyday life until everything changes when the Nazis start occupying Holland. Afterwards, the Jews are as Anne describes it “strictly limited”. They are ordered to wear a yellow star to distinguish them from others; they needed to hand in their bicycle, couldn’t ride trams and learn to drive and amongst other things must strictly go to Jewish schools.  Quickly enough, the Frank family flee their home in Amsterdam to go into hiding known as the “Secret Annex” as they fear for their lives.  Nonetheless, the Franks share their hiding with one more family known as the Van Daan’s. During the period spent in hiding, the two families also experience hunger, boredom, and miseries that they would hear from the outside. In order to keep herself from thinking about this, Anne tries to engage herself in learning French and math.  Furthermore, after a close revelation of their hideout, The Franks and Van Dann’s are joined by Albert Dussel,  a doctor who Anne finds  “a stodgy old-fashioned disciplinarian.” Lastly, during this time there are bombs flying around everywhere and Anne simply cannot get used to this.