The most recommended Anne Frank books

As a young girl, most afternoons you could find me up a tree, book in hand. My favorite stories all had a common theme: animals. I felt a stronger connection to the animal world than to my own species. When I first read Julie of the Wolves at the age of 8, I was far too young to understand all the social implications of being a barely pubescent orphaned girl forced into a child marriage, but I resonated with the overwhelming desire to escape the confusion and pressures of human relationships. How I longed to be Julie, living among the wolves! 

This is the diary of a 21-year-old Jewish woman living in Paris during the German Occupation. A student at the Sorbonne, we follow her as she writes a first-hand account of the ever-increasing hardships and terrors her and her family face. She writes candidly about her experiences, her thoughts and beliefs as she and her family go about their daily routines, while living in constant fear of being arrested. It is a touching, personal testimony about Paris during World War II. She was arrested on the one night her family decided to sleep in their own home. Tragically, she died only days before her camp was liberated by the British. Some poignant details in her diary stayed with me long after I finished reading, and I used some of them in my novel.

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.

I liked this book because it was true and written in the form of a diary. This format made it especially interesting to me because you got a good idea about Ann’s thoughts and feelings while living in Amsterdam during Nazi occupation in World War II. She tries hard to overcome all kinds of obstacles to survive such as by not leaving the hidden attic and remaining quiet during the day. In her case, she doesn’t survive but knowing that Ann dies in a concentration camp makes the content of the book especially poignant. 

I was gripped by this first-person story of the horrors of the Holocaust. 

This is the story of a teen-age girl who experiences hell on earth – and manages to survive. It provides testimony to the resilience of the human spirit.

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 was fascinated by this gripping story about a twelve-year-old girl living in the Dominican Republic in 1960 because, while it is fiction, it is based on a very real and scary time in the history of the DR. My parents grew up in the DR under the dictatorship that was still in place in 1960, and Julia Alvarez does a beautiful job showing readers how young people and their families were impacted by that regime, as well as the bravery and hopefulness of those who fought for their country’s freedom.

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.

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.