This diary, kept by a girl who was born Dec 3,1980, in Sarajevo, is a quite poignant account of the horror which a little girl goes through while her home city is shelled. It extends from Sept 2, 1991, to Oct 17, 1993. She left Sarajevo in December 1993. We mever learn from the book whether the author is Croatian, Serb, or Moslem--apparently they all got along and the child cannot understand what the war is about. While the book recalls Anne Frank the circumstances were of course different. But one can be as surely killed by a bomb as by the Nazis, and the author faced such a possibility for many months. The book was translated from Serbo-Croation--which the huge list of languages listed on this site does not include! ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1095084.ht...

This is the diary of a bright eleven-year-old, Zlata Filipović, whose relatively normal life growing up in Sarajevo was suddenly and abruptly disrupted by the outbreak of war in April 1992; her daily life shifts suddenly from worrying about school and partying with friends and family, to hiding from snipers and artillery fire in her home and waiting to hear which of her friends has been killed. For those of us who deal with international affairs on a daily basis, it's a pretty good reminder that conflict is not really about the political leaders whose childishness Zlata excoriates; it is about ordinary people whose lives suddenly become hell because of evil decisions made by evil men.

Zlata comes across as a perceptive child, and it is interesting how her interpretation of the conflict shifts from essentially reflecting the Sarajevo consensus to more bitter and wiser invective against everyone responsible for the situation. But this is also a story whose telling in itself changes the teller: by the middle of the book, her diary-keeping has made her a celebrity; by the end (December 1993), she is being evacuated from Sarajevo with her family at the personal instructons of the French Minister of Defence.

But she doesn't let it go to her head. Comparisons with Anne Frank by external commentators are inevitable; Zlata just remarks that she hopes not to suffer the same fate. Even after the outside world "discovers" her, she still writes about family gossip as unselfconsciously as she did before the war started.

( )

In 1991 Zlata was living a normal life. She went to school, she had friends over for a birthday party, she watched MTV and sitcoms.

When war broke out in Sarajevo, Zlata's life changed forever. Suddenly she was thrust into a world where bombs pummeled her city every day. Innocent people were shot by snipers, so it was unsafe to leave the house. Schools were closed. Electricity, gas, and water only came on intermittently. Zlata and her family had done nothing wrong. They were like thousands of other Bosnians, caught in the crossfires of a war, trying their hardest just to survive.

One thing that really hit home for me is that Zlata is just about my age. On the very day that I was throwing my 10th birthday party, Zlata was carrying water from wells because they had no running water. She was receiving packages from the UN with "luxuries" like soap and cheese.

Zlata's descriptions are amazing. She writes about when springtime comes, but you can't tell because they've cut down all the trees. There are no trees to blossom, no birds to burst into song. This is a sobering book and an inspiring one. ( )

This is a heart-wrenching diary started by Zlata when she was 11, just prior to the beginning of the civil war in Bosnia. It covers the succeeding two years while the war rages until she and her parents are removed to Paris. I found her account of the war not only important in giving me a daily view of the horrors of this terrible war, but also fascinating in that Zlata was not the self-absorbed child I had been at that age. Zlata cared deeply for, worried about, and sympathized with her friends, parents, grandparents, teachers, aunts, uncles, parents friends, and total strangers caught up in the same morass that was sweeping her along. Eventually, of course, the day-to-day bombing and gun fire begins to affect her to such an extent that she begins to talk about committing suicide. That really worried me because if it made such a strong young woman feel that way, then many other more fragile children must have been in much worse shape.

Unfortunately, Zlata does not discuss the causes of the civil war because she is uninformed about them and states quire frankly that she's disinterested in politics. She is, however, very interested in and aware of the privations, deaths, and injuries of her family, friends, and teachers. She eloquently describes the food shortages, lack of water and electricity, constant fear of bombings and shell fire, the aftermath of the bombings on the city and the citizenry, and the closings of the schools which meant that she and her friends were both bored and ignorant. She's in such distress over the closing of the schools that she fears she will be in her 20s and still have a fifth grade education.

I did have some questions regarding the translation and editing of the book. Many of the words used seemed far too large for a girl of her age (what girl of 11 uses the word 'rife') and though she said that she wrote in her diary nearly daily, the book often jumps many days (or weeks) between entries. I suspect there were many more entries which the reader is not privy to. They may have been either child-like musings and/or boring, but I felt there should have been a note made in the introduction explaining that those entries were excised.

Portions of Zlata's Diary were chosen by UNICEF to publish showing the effects of war on children. Though this book is often marketed as a YA book, I was surprised to find it in my library in adult nonfiction, so it obviously is considered a cross-over book. ( )

diary written from a children's point of view just before the outbreak of war in Sarajevo. Zlata is 11 and likes all the things an 11 year old should: school, friends, pets, music and simply being a young girl.

She was already writing her diary before war broke out. When she was writing about her experiences it was refreshing to read them from a child's point of view. However, as another reviewer says below it becomes disjointed and there are so many people mentioned. Then again, it was written by a child. She writes incredibly well, with adult insight at times.

A short read for an adult, a more complex read for a child in my opinion. However, the cover is a bit dated now and might put a lot of people off. ( )