This isn't a bad book. If you have read the work of Prose or Muller about Anne Frank, however, this book doesn't really add anything to that. It is, however, a good starting point for someone who is interested in the history surrounding the diary. It can be read by both adults and children. In fact, if you have a child who has read the diary and wants to know more, this is a good (and affordable) place to start.

I got this when it was offered for free on Amazon. If I had spent 2.99, which is the listed price, I would have been upset. The book is very, very general and not detailed very much. While on the plus side, it does mention some lesser known museums, it is baffling in the major museums that it leaves out. It isn't complete in terms of description or much else.

I actually hadn't heard of this wreck until the book was on sale (kindle edition). I picked it up. I read it after reading a fictional book that mentioned the wreck.

This is a very gripping account of the wreck, near Australia of a Dutch ship. What then follows is a horror story as those who survive the wreck struggle to survive themselves.

As a woman, however, I do have to wonder why Peter FitzSimons never used the word rape to describe what happened to the women. Even taking into account the view of women back then, still use of the word at least once would have been justified. It was a rather strange omission.

Yeah, I never heard of Spijkenisse either until I saw this book at a local bookstore. It is near Rotterdam, like right near Rotterdam. This book is a history of the town's desire to re-invent, redraft, redesign, update - itself and to do that the town decides to do that, in part, by redesigning the library.

This book is about that library, which sounds pretty cool.

The design to build a new library ties into the desire to improve the lives of those living there, to encourage reading among other things. While the book is not a love story to book, it is an interesting book about a library that is a love building to books.

The book's pages are half folded in pages - you unfold them and you get more information about various things, such as the town's history - and this is at once a little annoying, but far more endearing.

It's a really cool book, I must say.

Disclaimer: Arc via Netgalley.

                If the world was fair, then everyone who has read, or will read, the Diary of Anne Frank could visit the Anne Frank house in person.

                While it is possible to see the house by touring the website, it does not convey the whole claustrophobic feeling.  Even today, there is a feeling of being cut off from the outside.  It brings something more to a reading of the diary.

                There has always been debate about using the diary to teach the Holocaust, mostly centering on either not telling Frank’s whole story or because that story is such a narrow and unusual one.  The diary, however, does something more important, it provides a door in – an ideal door for it is the words of a girl who doesn’t understand why, and those words speak to children today who are trying to understand the same thing.

                This book should be used in conjunction with the diary for it gives more details about those in hiding with Anne.  It makes them more than those who appear because here you have more of the story than Anne Frank’s limited knowledge.  This book fleshes out that knowledge. 

                The biographies include and spend as much time on those besides the Franks.  The Van Pels get some nice space and the biographies shed light on not only their marriage but some of the other behavior that Anne Frank witnessed.  Both Margot and Edith Frank, who are always overshadowed by Otto and Anne Frank, have more space here and in their respective sections, photos of them without their more famous relatives are included.  Pfeffer too gets more space. 

                It isn’t just the other residents of the Annex that get attention; the helps to get space.  While much as been written about Miep Gies, but here Kleiman, Kugler, and Bep Voskuijl get the same amount of attention as does Jan Gies.  What comes across especially when viewing the photographs was the tightness in the group of people. 

                The book is rounded out by very brief information about other people in the surrounding area - such as workers (the cats even get a mention).   The book also includes a timeline and map of important camps, making it a good companion to be used in a classroom or when reading the Diary itself.