Anne Frank and Me

Anne Frank and Me is one of the best books I have ever read. I couldn't put it down. It captured my attention from the beginning because I connected with the main character Nicole. She thought that nothing could go right for her. Come to find out when she entered the life of a Jewish girl nothing was going right there either. This book had so many twists that I had to finsih it while sitting at the dining room table with my whole family watching me...that is how good it was.

I am 12 years old and before I read this book the holocast used to just be a "thing" that happened. It used to be "so cool" that bazillions of jews got killed, but after reading this book, my mind is forever changed. The book starts out with something I can relate to-- a computer savy 15 yearold with an annoying younger sister views the holocast as a "thing"--. This captures my attention and incouraged me to read something other that my Harry Potter books. <--- very unusual for me! So NE ways when this girl went back in time, everything felt so real, sometimes I forgot I was me and it felt like I was there. It told the scary truth about being arrested, going into hiding, watching people die, and then watching you and your little sister die. At the end I actually cried it seemed so real. I have read many books about the holocast over the years, and this is by far my absolute fave!!! READ IT!

The authors of ANNE FRANK AND ME have accomplished a phenomenal task. They have written a Holocaust novel that is deeply moving without being a depressing read. Like THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK itself, the ultimate message of Bennett & Gottesfeld's book is one of hope. Both books demonstrate that even in the midst of the most horrendous violations of human rights, good people still exist who can make a difference. Without trivializing the historical tragedy, both books paint three-dimensional portraits of real teenagers, just as concerned with fashion and dating as they are with whether they will live or die. This juxtaposition is refreshingly realistic. Nicole Burns is an average teenager, at times intolerant, boy-crazy, and uninterested in schoolwork. She, like most of the characters in this book, is not 100% good nor 100% evil. In a misguided effort to be politically correct, some authors of historical fiction make their characters sinners or saints, leaving the reader with the impression that she could never relate to these larger-than-life people. But teens will identify with Nicole. They will realize that the Holocaust happened to ordinary people like themselves, and that it could happen again. This story will hook even reluctant readers with its humor and up-to-date setting, including Nicole's own website. Nicole's time-travel to Paris in 1942 is believably handled. Events become gradually more intense, so that by the time Nicole is in real danger, readers who would not normally choose a "serious," "educational" book will keep reading to find out what happens next. You will cry. You will also smile. You will definitely think and learn. What more could you ask from a book?

The more you know about the Nazi occupation of Paris, France, and the checkered French response to it, the more you will understand what a remarkable feat authors Bennett and Gottesfeld have accomplished in a book ostensibly for young adults. This book, full of the adolescent longing, romance, and expression of young sexuality that marks Anne Frank's own diary, is a veritable Sophie's Choice for teens. If only all historical fiction for young people could be this powerful. There are three main reasons for Anne Frank and Me's power. First, every teen (and this adult reader) will come to fall in love with the authors' heroine, a modern Christian tenth grader named Nicole, who describes herself accurately on her Girl X website as a "girl in the middle." She reminded me too much of too many of my own students, too distracted by the drama of their lives to do their homework. But under Nicole, and under my students, is a young woman who could change the world if only she'd let herself seize the day. Second, the authors' research is brilliant. Nazi-Occupied Paris comes to life as a teen would see it. Readers will understand all the major events, including the anti-Jewish laws, the yellow star decree, the July 1942 round-up of foreign-born Jews, the black market, the continuation of Paris' cultural life, the collaborationist press, the French fascist miltias, the killing of innocents in reprisal for acts of resistance.... It's all there. Both present and past are expertly rendered from a teen's eye view. The dialogue is crisp and idiomatic in the present, truthful in the past. The authors embrace Nicole, including the same romantic and erotic longings in her life that Anne Frank wrote about in her own diary. Nicole is in love with a boy who loves her. This love is reflected in her diary, as you might expect. Under the circumstances, knowing what we know about what is likely to come, it is both breathtaking and heartbreaking. Heartbreaking too is Nicole's chance meeting with Anne on a cattle car on the way to Birkenau. Parts of this book made me, a Christian teacher, shudder. I like to think that were I alive back then, I would have been another Miep Gies, doing everything I could to keep Nicole's--or Anne Frank's--family alive. I like to think I would have brought food to the Secret Annex. But who can deny that most of our Christian brethren were too worried about their own lives and too influenced by centuries of anti-Semitism to do what we could to protect our Jewish neighborhors? It made me uncomfortable to be confronted with this reality as I read. But so be it. The point of reading is not to be made comfortable. Lastly, this book is a great read, full of plot twists and turns that defied my best efforts to guess what was coming next. I read it in a single sitting, something I haven't done with a young adult novel since Speak. Whether you're a teen or a parent or a teacher or a grandparent, put Anne Frank and Me on y

What does a mod, hip, Internet-surfing American teen-age girl have in common with a puberty-driven, would-be writer, icon-to-be, locked away in an early 1940s, Amsterdam, Holland, annex? Seemingly little, until their worlds merge on September 3, 1944, when both find themselves en route to the hell known as Auschwitz.How does this all happen? Ah, therein lies the tale. And, with Cherie Bennett the spinner-driver and Jeff Gottesfeld the navigator, the reader is in for a wondrous ride indeed. ANNE FRANK AND ME unfolds in that ever-whimsical, ever-evolving world of teen angst. Nicole Burns is too busy for homework, for family, and nearly for historical truth. Only a sudden, bizarre incident saves Nicole from going down the road of Holocaust denial.The journey Nicole takes as her Jewish alter ego, though, is rough, shocking, and tortuous, even though, ultimately, liberating. Nicole Bernhardt finds 1942 Paris a world of Jewish restriction, harassment, and, eventually, confinement. Within the dual Nicoles, though, a gleam of realization begins to dawn. The new Nicole perceives, correctly, that those who do not seek to find the truth are bound, in some measure, to suffer from that failure. When Nicole encounters Anne, Nicole's words are measured, for she knows then the truth in a way that Anne Frank cannot.No young reader can walk away from this book unchanged, anymore than Nicole could escape her ultimate fate. Historical truth, even in a fictional world, demanded it. (Bill Younglove, Mandel Fellow, 1999-2000)