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-Sharon DogarPublisher: Houghton Mifflin
Publication Date: October, 2010
Source: Library
Of note: YA Historical Fiction Challenge Book #7
Everyone knows about Anne Frank and her life hidden in the secret annex - but what about the boy who was also trapped there with her?
In this powerful and gripping novel, Sharon Dogar explores what this might have been like from Peter's point of view. What was it like to be forced into hiding with Anne Frank, first to hate her and then to find yourself falling in love with her? Especially with your parents and her parents all watching almost everything you do together. To know you're being written about in Anne's diary, day after day? What's it like to start questioning your religion, wondering why simply being Jewish inspires such hatred and persecution? Or to just sit and wait and watch while others die, and wish you were fighting.
As Peter and Anne become closer and closer in their confined quarters, how can they make sense of what they see happening around them?
Anne's diary ends on August 4, 1944, but Peter's story takes us on, beyond their betrayal and into the Nazi death camps. He details with accuracy, clarity and compassion the reality of day to day survival in Auschwitz - and ultimately the horrific fates of the Annex's occupants.
(B&N)
The Diary of Anne Frank is one of those books that changed my life. I read it for the first time when I was really young, I think I was in third or fourth grade. That book sparked a life long interest in history and World War II especially. I saw a lot of myself in Anne. I was the youngest of two daughters, and my older sister was quiet and 'good' like Margot, while I was the younger, louder daughter who loved to write.
Annexed is a fictional re-telling of Peter's life, based on Anne's diary and his imagined life after in the death camps. I've read the diary so many times that the story is very familiar to me, and I felt the author was true to it. I enjoyed reading the events from Peter's perspective. The addition of his imagined life in the camps was an interesting take on what his life might have been like once he left the Annex.
I really enjoyed Annexed and if you're an Anne Frank fan, or just a fan of historical fiction in general, you should definitely pick it up.
It's been so long since I read Anne Frank but I still remember being so moved by it, even at a young age. This sounds like an interesting twist on someone we don't know a lot about. Excellent review, will definitely be adding this to my TBR list!
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