100 books like The Diary of Anne Frank

I love the narration of this book. It is rich, lush, and vibrant. Each scene is painted like the sky at sunrise. The main character Esperanza’s journey—from riches to rags, from pampered to grateful, from fearful to hopeful—is very satisfying.

Seeing the world through Esperanza’s viewpoint was heart-wrenching and eye-opening. The ending contains a delightful surprise, which, in my opinion, also makes for a great read.     

I almost didn’t include this Newbery Medal winner book by Louis Sachar on my list of magical middle-grade books set in the real world. Is it really magical? Is it set in the real world? With a fourteen-year-old protagonist, Stanley Yelnats, is it even middle-grade?

Here’s why my love for this book won out. Sachar weaves together a quirky, complex story, just interconnected enough to qualify as “magical.” The setting, a juvenile prison camp with a sadistic warden, is “real-world” enough. And Stanley, though emotionally young for fourteen, is a kind, thoughtful kid well worth rooting for.

About halfway through reading, its darkness almost prompted me to lay this book aside. I’m so glad I didn’t. In the end, its themes of perseverance, hope, and redemption shone through.

What are you made of, really? Who hasn’t conjured up a survival scenario in which you are the protagonist? How would you fare?

I loved this book because the author put you on that plane in that horribly inconceivable situation in which you simply know you will likely die. But you don’t—not immediately, anyway. But then the real struggle begins. This book resonates with me because every difficult, life-changing scenario is utterly plausible, unnerving, and interesting. 

This book captured me from start to finish. Like my book, this story is told in a gripping journal format. A meteor knocks the moon off its orbit and this causes catastrophic consequences on earth. Summer turns to a bitterly cold winter and Miranda and her two brothers and mother must figure out how they will survive in such harsh conditions. Having enough food to survive is a constant concern. This book helps us realize that when things get really awful, all that matters is food, water, staying warm, and remaining together as a family. All other concerns fall away. 

I loved this non-fiction book, and reading it, I often broke down in tears, realizing this personal and innocent true teenage story was all leading up to the tremendous death of millions of innocent people.

This is the only Anne Frank book that I recommend to everybody from a young age. It is THE introduction to the real events of World War 2.

Miep Gies was one of the people who hid Anne Frank, her family, and four friends in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam in 1942.

At great risk, four of Otto Frank’s employees secured food stamps from the underground and took care of the hiders for an astonishing two years and one month before they were betrayed. Gies’s book gives a real sense of what it was like to live under enemy occupation when it was impossible to trust anyone.

“We were no longer keeping silent. We had lost the habit of speech. Do you understand the difference?” she once said. She didn’t consider herself heroic for helping the Franks. “It was simple. You were asked. You said yes.”

I can’t understand why this book isn’t better known. It is an actual diary that survived by chance. It was written by a young woman of twenty-one from a wealthy Jewish family long-established in France and not thinking of themselves as anything but French. I found it gripping and harrowing, all the more so because when the Nazis conquer France and start to impose restrictions on Jews, Hélène cannot grasp what is happening or what lies ahead. She has had a happy, secure life, but now these hideous indignities are being imposed on her.

When she is forced to wear the yellow star, she is horrified by the jeers and insults directed at her in the streets by passers-by whom she has always thought of as fellow citizens. The diary brings home, like almost nothing else I’ve read, the way in which the ordinary life of the intended victims turned… show more.

I came across Anne Frank’s diary when I was a little younger than she was when she began writing it. It had a powerful impact on me because it was a true story that offered an insight into the heart and mind of a girl close to my own age who had not survived the Holocaust. It showed me that personal experiences written in an authentic voice are an important part of our storytelling culture. They have the power to change readers’ thinking and develop empathy. Like Anne, I wanted to become a published author, but at the time I had no idea so much of my writing life would be spent focusing on fact rather than fiction.

The Diary of Anne Frank may be the most well-known story of the Holocaust. Millions have read or seen the movie about the young girl and her family hiding in an attic room in Amsterdam until they were betrayed and taken to Auschwitz. Having visited the hiding place in Amsterdam that still holds the memory of that time, I found Sullivan’s work fascinating. She takes a familiar tale to the next level as she explores the cold case re-opened after decades by Vincent Pankoke, a retired FBI agent who painstakingly follows the trail to a startling conclusion.

Good books can be one of a parent’s best allies in teaching virtue. This guide is a gold mine of more than 300 high-quality fiction and non-fiction books that have strong character themes. There are recommendations for young, middle, and older readers. Each book is described in a full paragraph with detail rich enough to give us a clear idea of its content and value. Books like these can contribute to children’s character development in many ways: by taking them into worlds beyond their own; enabling them to learn vicariously from the good and bad choices of the characters they encounter; helping them grow in understanding of people different from themselves; and perhaps inspiring them to want to be more like a character who is wiser or kinder or braver.

Reading together can become a treasured “connective ritual” for parents and children. It was in our family. And the more… show more.