After hearing a call for people to keep notes or diaries about their wartime experiences, Anne Frank, age 13, decided to heed the request. Her diary, kept over a two-year period, details WWII and the Nazis from a young person's perspective. Selma Blair is the perfect narrator—her manner and delivery make Anne a girl for all time. Her sunny voice has a modern sound as it expresses the horrific reality of Anne’s life of hiding with her family in an attic in Amsterdam. Because Anne was totally honest, her diary is priceless to every teen who follows her. She shows kids that many of the pains of growing up are universal. The matter-of-fact presentation of the afterword is particularly heartbreaking. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
We all have a lot to be grateful for in our lives. But writers (and readers, to be honest), in particular, often owe a debt to a particular book—one that shaped them, as a reader, as writer, as a human being. So this Thanksgiving, BN Teen asked 14 of your favorite authors to share the […]