Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Anne Frank

This is sort of an oddball post, but I just read the Diary of Anne Frank for the first time, and it struck me first and foremost as a fascinating portrait of a gifted teenage girl. Anne was clearly a precocious and extremely gifted writer, and many of her descriptions of her own thoughts and behaviors and the reactions they elicited from her parents and those in hiding with her read like a case study right out of Miraca Gross's work. I also found the "homeschool" curriculum Anne followed during her two years in hiding to be fascinating. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in gifted lit.

I'd never thought of it that way but you make a good point. Thanks!

that is really an interesting insight that i'd never have thought of when i read Anne as a teenager.
irene

I need to reread Anne Frank and keep that in mind while I'm reading it. What age is this book good for?

I think they typically read it in middle school, don't they? The writing itself isn't hard, but the fact of her death and how she died, the Holocaust, etc. tend to make it better for older kids even if the younger ones can read it.

I could be wrong though. I confess that I'm not looking it up to double-check my memory...

LOL - she just seemed normal, right?

Around here, Anne Frank and several other books(indluding "Number the Stars")about the Holocost are read in 4th grade, with quite a bit of discussion. It seems a bit young to me, but that being said, my generally sensitive son was fine with it (emotionally) and learned a lot. I think they try to place the emphasis on how discrimination is bad, about brave things people do to help others, and how we need to learn from history.

I, too, am definitely going to reread it with an eye toward her giftedness. As soon as I read your post MsFriz, I immediately knew you were right!

I heard an interesting piece on NPR about considering Anne Frank's Diary as literature, not just as history.

"She decided that she wanted the book to be published, and she went back to the beginning and she re-wrote all the entries she wrote as a 13-year-old, except of course now she was a 15-year-old," Prose says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113198365

I never considered that idea that it was a conscious decision to write a book to be published as opposed to just keeping a diary.

My English teacher in HS brought this up. But when you consider Anne's situation, just about anyone would go back and rewrite some stuff just to pass the time. I do think she hoped the book would be found. But she was too young to cast it in any way for posterity.