BFYAA

A collection of made up stories and reminiscences (and some that are a mixture of both). These show (assuming the faithfulness of the translation) that Anne had a great writing talent for one so young, and writing moreover under such conditions of almost unbearable stress and tension, cooped up with family and others, surrounded by a world persecuting her and her kind for their very existence. A moving collection. ( )

Lexile: 950
Reading Recovery: 30
DRA: 44
Fountas Pinnel Guided Reading: X

It was enjoyable. I'm not going to pretend that Anne Frank was a miraculous girl wonder - the writing is about what you'd expect from a fairly intelligent 13 yr old. Nothing too terribly deep. What I found amazing was that, despite what was going on around her, the stories show this stubborn idealism. The fact that she managed to hang onto that is the most impressive thing here. That's my two cents, at least. She's also mature enough to realize that not everything ends happily, and there are a few stories which reflect this. Not sure how to rate it though. Taken in context, pretty high. Taken for plain old writing value...not as much so.