SOURCE: "Anne Frank's Autobiographical Style," in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2, Summer, 1991, pp. 78-81.

[In the following essay, Iskander examines Frank's style, noting its relation to the classic tenets of biography developed by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell.]

Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, originally entitled Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex), presents a self portrait that captivates most readers initially because of their foreknowledge of the tragic conclusion of this young girl's life Anne Frank.

and the other horrors of the Holocaust. Subsequently, Anne's revelation of her unique personality and her unusual circumstances rivet readers to the Diary, proclaiming it a classic. [In an endnote, Iskander states: "Anne's diary is unique, even though other diaries exist from World War II. The others are either written by diarists older than teenagers, such as twenty-seven-year old Etty Hillesum's An Interrupted Life (about her life in Amsterdam from 1941 to...