Lawrence Graver's thorough investigation of the controversy surrounding Anne Frank and the play based on her diary is as intense as a page-turning mystery novel. Graver weaves the tale of bringing Anne Frank's world-famous diary to the stage, and casts an overlooked player in a major role. Meyer Levin, a Jewish writer relatively well-known in the 1950s, and one of the most successful Jewish writers to write about Jewish themes at that time, was the first to review Anne Frank's diary in the States. In fact, he was instrumental in getting the diary published, and he forged a friendship with Otto Frank. The friendship turned sour as Levin fought for rights to compose the stage script for 1955's "The Diary of Anne Frank." In a legal battle that lasted thirty years, Levin vs. Frank lost Levin his rights to the script he felt best represented Anne--and her Jewishness. Frank and Doubleday sided with the well-known Hacketts--who would win a Pulitzer for their then-loved, now-criticized Everyman version of Anne's diary--and staged the play to rave reviews around the world. Levin took his script to Israel, fighting legal battles in court even to stage it there. Graver does an excellent job of exposing the story and the personalities of all its characters, including Lillian Helman. But Graver rightly shies away from demonizing Levin and canonizing Frank, or vice versa. His loyalty is first to accuracy, and an account that could easily become polarized by a mission to perpetuate the saintliness of Anne Frank and her family comes off as more complex and, ultimately, more informative.

Recommended in "A Basic List of Recommended Books and Journals for Support of Clinical Dentistry in a Nondental Library" in Bulletin Of the Medical Library Association, July 1997.

I'm from a russian family from Odessa, Ukraine who wants find out members from my lost family.

An absolutely wonderful book. If you ever want to find out how Anne Frank lived, and what sort of world she lived in, this is the book to read. Hundreds of photographs of Anne, her family and friends, her neighborhood, Holocaust victims, Hitler, ration stamps, starving people, other people in hiding...all told in a riveting style. One of the books you will read over and over.

Some quirky calculus seems to rule the story of Anne Frank and her diary. The further time recedes from the pivotal events of the diary's origins, the more people seem interested in Anne as a person, Anne as a Holocaust statement, Anne as a publishing phenomenon, or just Anne as a long-lost tragic friend.

I was just thirteen when I read her book, the same age that she started scribbling her thoughts in that famous checked binder with the little metal clasp. Thirteen is an age when childhood lies like freshly cut grass in recent memory, with puberty and adulthood new temptations soon to be savoured. Her original diary seems to kindle some inner furnace in our souls. The magic of the story is that we want to know more, more about Anne, her life, her family, her silent footsteps after the Annex.

Ruud van der Rol and Rian Verhoeven's photographic remembrance of Anne - Beyond the Diary - is a touching and fitting tribute to the Dutch schoolgirl's legacy. Anna's Quindlen's poignant introduction strikes the right emotional notes for what follows. She says Anne's diary has a kind mystical quality for the adolescents who first encounter it and for the adults left with its spiritual aftertaste. The power is so strong that Quindlen refers to the shiver that took hold of her has she saw pictures of the original diary in the van der Rol and Verhoeven book. She speaks for all of us when she says Anne was not just a victim, a fugitive, and a metaphor but an ordinary girl with blemishes, worried about boys, parents, clothes and a post-war future.

The authors should be congratulated for their presentation of rarely seen photographs of Anne Frank and her family. There is Anne's mother, Edith, with baby Anne seemingly a few hours old, in a Frankfurt hospital. There is Mum and Dad on their honeymoon; Anne and Margot as toddlers sitting on Dad's knee; the young girls dressed beautifully out shopping with Mum in downtown Frankfurt. These are happy times: family, friends, movies, a day at the beach. But a sombre bell tolls...

Like melancholy drapes blocking the sunlight, the remainder of the book catalogues the Frank family in hiding as Nazism throws its fetid shadow. There are photographs of That List - not Schindler's - but Anne's. Her name appears on the passenger manifest for the last transport from Westerbork to Auschiwitz and then, sadly, on the final Red Cross declaration. The photographs, accompanied by the simple text, are a revelation. This book comes as close as any to capturing Anne's allure. But Anne in "Beyond the Diary" is still somehow beyond reach. We love her diary because we seem to share so much with her. Her last footprints show, in fact, that we probably share very little...

This book is an excellent one I recently chose for our Lutheran church library. The story follows the lives of the Franks during the prewar era. It describes how, little by little, lives of the Jews became compartmentalized and restricted and how it affected Anne's family specifically. This explanation helps children understand why people were trapped---it all happened so slowly in such smalll increments that before they knew it there was no escape. This book also contains numerous maps and timelines about the concentration camps, their proximity and how people were sent from one to the other. The book then goes on the describe how Anne's diary was saved. For kids who have read her diary, perhaps in the classroom, or for those who just want to know more about Anne and see her in photographs, this book is an excellent learning tool and leaves you feeling both sad at her premature death and triumphant that her diary was saved.

Eva Schloss's remarkable story of survival should be better publicized and used by teachers everywhere, especially since it allows young people to experience the Holocaust through the eyes of a teenager and her mother. Schloss's book is on a level with Gerda Klein's ALL BUT MY LIFE. The writing style is succinct and direct which adds to its appeal to young people.

As I read the book, I wondered for the thousandth time how such events could have occurred in "civilized" Europe in our lifetimes. The addition of a timeline of events related to WWII is especially helpful to students.

The remarkable relationship between this young woman and her mother is a testimony to the power of family relationships grounded in faith in a higher power. It stands in counterpoint to the somewhat strained relationship of Anne Frank and her mother while in hiding. Like Etty Hillesum's diaries and letters, it allows us to see the world through the eyes of a young girl who confronted evil "in the image and likeness of God," yet never lost her faith in humanity.

While I grieve for the author's loss of her father (Pappy) and her brother (Heinz), I rejoice that she lived to share her experiences with generations who may have a difficult time giving a human face to the Holocaust. Her mother's love for Otto Frank was certainly a factor in sustaining him as he dealt with the loss of his first wife and children.

I would love to meet Eva Schloss and her mother, if Mrs. Frank is still with us. The picture of mother and daughter on the back cover of the copy I received through our library really captures the spiritual strength and moral courage of these two incredible women. They have made the world a better place with their testimonies.

I also teach an extensive unit on the Holocaust and Anne Frank. I am always on the look out for survivor stories for teens. This book certainly makes the cut. It is easy-to-read yet does relate the horrors of her experience in the camps. Her relationship to her mother and others in the camps shows the definite role companionship played in survival.

Eva's relationship to Anne Frank is simply a plus for the book. To have lived so close to Anne and even played in her house with her cat makes Anne become even more alive. Eva's relationship with her brother parallels Anne's relationship to Margot. Interestingly, Heinz and Margot seems to have similar personalities as do Anne and Eva. ...Her courage to speak about this terrrible time in history is a reminder to us all to remember what happened and those who are no longer with us and have no one to remember them.

I've read the book and I think it was exellent. Exiting and very sad, sad because it was real everything, it was not just any story. What Eva told was real life experiences. But there nothing we can do about it now else than remember it and tell all about it to the kids when they grow up, it's really important to not forget what happend to the jews and other folk group during the 2 WW. I still pray for them.

Had this been a collection of stories and essays by anybody else, I would have thought it was nothing special. But having read the Diary of Anne Frank first, the stories and essays make so much more sense. You can just see her whiling away the dull moments of the life in the secret annex, honing her writing skills. It is easy to see her skills as a writer increase from story to story. But even more interesting is to read the messages contained within her works. The writing skills she displays are obviously that of a teenager, although much better than most people her age. But the real value of these pieces are the insights which she brings to them; her life experiences and her approach to life's big questions. The last essay in the collection is entitled, "Why" and seems to sum up her short life. Read this book, but only after you read the Diary so the essays will be meaningful.

In her now famous Diary, Anne Frank said "I want to go on living even after my death". As of 1998, The Diary of Anne Frank had reached sales of 25 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages. (source: TIME, October 5, 1998). It has been required classroom reading for half a century now! In a way, her wish has come to pass.
This subsequent publication "Tales From The Secret Annex" combines short stories, reminiscences/vignettes, and even an unfinished novel to show us yet another dimension to this remarkable person. Reading these stories and little essays confirmed my personal opinion that Anne Frank was a childhood genius with unlimited potential to achieve anything she would have set her mind to. It's hard to imagine this thirteen year old girl writing with such depth and perception, while living in seclusion, terror and fear for her life. She was writing from her heart, not with an expectation of being published. And yet these stories shine with a polished brilliance, and a certain unforgettable quality. I read this book for the first time 8 years ago, and have returned to it now, remembering the stories as though I had read them just last week. My favorite is entitled "Kathy". In three short pages, Anne captures every emotion experienced by a kid who is misunderstood by her mother, assaulted by schoolyard bullies who mock and rob her and cause her to lose the gift she was bringing home to her mother.

Here is how she ends her essay entitled "Give":
"If only our country and then Europe and finally the whole world would realize that people were really kindly disposed toward one another, that they are all equal and everything else is transitory!
Open your eyes... give of yourself, give as much as you can! And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! No one has ever become poor from giving! If you do this, then in a few generations no one will need to pity the beggar children anymore, because they will not exist!
There is plenty of room for everyone in the world, enough money, riches, and beauty for all to share! God has made enough for everyone. Let us all begin by sharing it fairly." (written March 26, 1944).

Anne was sent to Bergen-Belsen, where some time during March 1945, she, her sister Margot and hundreds of other prisoners were stricken with typhus. Their captors, preoccupied with the advancing Allies, left them to die.
World... read her book!

Also published under the title "Tales from the House Behind," this is a collection of juvenile/young adult stories that Anne Frank worked on during her years in hiding in the annex with her family and fellow fugitives. It proves that this young girl had an incredible gift for writing, and that had she lived she probably would have been received the Noble Prize for Literature. Her stories were often candid indictments of her own family life, such as Kitty, which tells the story of a young girl who day-dreams and a mother who wants her child to listen and obey rather than dream. Anne's essays show an in-depth understanding of human nature, surprising for one so young. This is a poignant book filled with fables, short stories, essays and even part of an unfinished novel. It's worth reading after you have read "The Diary of Anne Frank" simply because the diary will give you more insight to this amazing girl's life. However "Tales from the Secret Annex" stands on its own too, and like the diary should be on every school child's list of books to read.

I think that this book is a wonderful example of how the Jews were treated. The book gives inside imformation and helps anyone to understand The Holocaust. This was a terific book to read because it really told how everything was and how it happened during that point and time. I feel really sorry for what they had to go through and everything but this was a great book. The only think that I would suggest is that if you don't like sad books, then maybe this is not the book for you. The book was interesting and had a lot to offer people who want to find out about what people had to go through. I think that we can't really say, oh this is sick or anything because they went through a lot and we need to have some respect for them. My social studies teacher is the one who brought that to my attention and I think that we do need to have some respect for them. I enjoyed reading the book and hopefully you will to. the book will help you on history projects also! Hope that this will intrest readers enough to read it. This is really a book that you can't explain very well. I believe that if you will read it, you will love it!!!

The diary of Anne Frank is an outstanding book written by Anne Frank, a girl of thirteen years of age. This book is chronologically written, starting on Sunday, 14 June 1942. The Diary of Anne Frank is a true story that tells how the Frank family, the Van Daan family, and an elderly dentist, Albert Dussel, lived while they were in hiding during the Second World War.
The diary of Anne Frank expresses to the reader the innermost thoughts and shows how she matured and grew in knowledge from the age of thirteen to fifteen. She spoke her mind and did not fear to tell the truth. Anne explains in her diary how she was forced to leave her Montessori school and attend the Jewish Lyceum. She tells when and why they went into hiding.
Anne's diary, which she called "kitty," tells of a life of Jews waiting in fear of being captured by the Nazis. She tells of her love and first kiss to Peter Van Daan. Anne's diary ends on August 4, 1994, when a Gestapo raid on the secret annex exposes their hideout. In March of 1945, Anne died in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsenk, two months before the liberation of Holland.

Anne frank was a young girl who grew up during one of the most terrible times during the past century. She was given a diary on her birthday and it documented her nearly every thought, desire, and problem.
When the Nazi party took over Germany, Jews were prosecuted and eventually tagged, sent into concentration camps, and experimented on, and tortured. Millions of Jews died for no reason, because the Nazis blamed them for Germany's hard economical and social problems. They were forced to take showers in chemicals, eat nothing, and live in extreme crowdedness. Anne Frank and her family realized what would eventually happen if they stayed put, so they took shelter in the attic of friendly non-Jews. They lived there for what would have seemed an eternity, living on folding beds, with another family. They could only move at night because someone might report them if they were seen, moving, in the hidden attic above the top floor.
What happened to Anne Frank? You must read this amazing work in order to fully understand the horrors facing a Jew in world war two

I read the book Memories of Anne Frank by Alison Leslie Gold as an assignment for school. I usually like to read but this book was very average but I am definitely not saying that this book is not a good one. Its just really is not style of book. The book was focused mainly on Anne Frank's childhood friend Hannah Goslar and Hannah's family. The book was not very factual, it did not give many important dates, and it stayed mostly from one point of view. The story was mostly based around memories that Hannah had of Anne's and her childhood friendship and the families friendship when thing were all fine and before the Nazi people came. The book I would probably recommend this book to a girl over a boy because the main character, Hannah, is a girl and boy and girls interpret thing differently most times. Mainly I did enjoy the book but it was not one of the best books I ever read.

Alison Leslie Gold's splendid new book on the world of Anne Frank focuses on the plight of Anne's beloved 'Hanneli',and 'Lies',whose real name was Hannah Pick-Goslar. They lived in the same neighbourhood in central Amsterdam,and lived identical lives. Later,while in hiding,Anne would write of Hannah in her diary,though her name,like many others,would be altered for safety reasons.Hannah tries to recall as much as she can for this new book,though,as she says in beginning,'If I knew back then that Anne would become so famous I would have tried to remember more'. It is a great coincidence that Anne and Hannah would be reunited at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Though Hannah has been approached for many books,including Ernst Schnabel's now-classic 'Footsteps of Anne Frank',Carol Ann Lee's book,and Melissa Muller's,this is the first book that Hannah has been directly involved in. I know that many people are thankful that Hannah was by Anne's side to the end,and we are so lucky to have her testament on record. This is one girl's story of courage over the most terrible periods of the twentieth century.

This book is wonderfull. It tells the story of one of the secondary characters in Anne's diary, Hannali (ie Lies) Gosens.

It's true that it focuses mostly on Hannah, but that's the way it should be. It fills in many of the essential holes in Anne's story and tells us what happened to their other friend Sanna ....

If you like this one, I also recommend Eva's Story. It's the story of Anne's posthumous step-sister (her mom married Otto after the war). It's true that the parents never met, but Eva had been over to the Frank House many times and was even at ther birthday party where they watched Rin Tin Tin (or whatever the movie was) and Anne got her diary. Both books provide valuable instight and are necessary to the understanding of Anne Frank.

This book has useful (though not terribly complete) introductions to each of the plays, focusing mainly on comparing various Folio and Quarto editions of the plays. It also contains some nice pictures, though I wish the Latin in them were translated or shown at a legible size. It has very nice appendicies nothing the first appearances of all the characters in the plays, and a timeline showing what historical events were occuring in relation to works written by Shakespeare and events in his life, as well as to plays by other playwrights and other literature produced at that time. The pages are relatively thin and the print small. However (this referes to the '74 edition, maybe they have changed it since then) the plays are a royal pain to read. The pages are about a foot high and the notes are at the bottom. There is no marking to indicate whether a line has a note, so the reader must read a line or two, glance down at the notes, read another few lines, look at the notes again, and so on. Were it not for this major annoyance, this would be a very good (and very complete) edition of Shakespeare's works.

This one-volume edition of Shakespeare's works is the most complete I found on the market: it includes "The Two Noble Kinsmen", Shakespeare's addition to "Sir Thomas More" (with photographical reproduction of the pages believed to be in his handwrite), the currently hot debated poem "A Funeral Elegy by W. S." and, above all, "The Reign of King Edward III", a new play recently accepted in the canon by many authoritative editors (Arden, Cambridge, Oxford). The text of each work is carefully edited and accompanied by helpful glossarial notes, a textual discussion with short bibliography, and an impressive collation which allows the reader to find variant readings and emendations. An exhaustive critical introduction precedes each play and poem, dealing with authorship, date, sources, textual differences between quarto and folio texts, and of course the principal thematic issues. What makes this a superb edition - and indeed a real "companion" to Shakespeare studies! - is the great amount of subsidiary material, including a general introduction - focusing on Shakespeare's life, art, language, style, and on the Elizabethan historical and theatrical background - and a series of useful essays on various themes: critical approaches to the plays and poems, philological issues, history of the plays on the stage, television and cinema. There are also many interesting documents, synoptic tables, glossaries, indexes, illustrated tables (both coloured and b&w) , the reproduction of the introductory pages of the First Folio of 1623, and a rich bibliography. I personally consider this book a must have for every teacher, scholar, or simply amateur of the greatest of all poets. Buy it!

While I sympathize somewhat with the review below -- the introductions do quibble a bit over the differences between Folio and Quarto versions, the exact source material etc. -- I found this to be an excellent version of the complete works. The essay before each play is very helpful toward understanding the literary context of the play--they _do_ talk about the characters and the action of the play, in a way that nicely complements the text. The illustrations (some black and white, some color) are also interesting and helpful. The book contains both a general introduction, which is accessible, if slightly daunting, to a reader who might not be intimately familiar with all of the plays, serving to excite interest at least. It also contains an essay on 20th century Shakespeare criticism, which introduces many of the newer movements in Shakespeare criticism that are not included in the general introduction (which focuses more on the Elizabethan historical period, and more immediate reactions to the plays). The footnotes, while they are not indicated on the line itself, are located on the same page. In looking at several other editions, I found that footnotes were sometimes actually endnotes--i.e. located in one section at the end of the play, which would be very disruptive to reading. Happily, this is not the case in this edition.

The book, as the title claims, includes all of Shakespeare's plays, Sonnets, and poems. The appendices include many other interesting tidbits that help shine some light on old Billy's life, including his will, in which he enigmatically bequeathed a "second-best bed" to his wife. Other documents are included, often with explanations to help the reader to understand (as the documents are printed verbatim, the Elizabethan spelling and punctuation is a slight impediment).

Overall, I found this to be the best of the paperback and hardcover editions I examined.