Ruud van der Rol and Rian Verhoeven's photographic remembrance of Anne - Beyond the Diary - is a touching and fitting tribute to the Dutch schoolgirl's legacy. Anna's Quindlen's poignant introduction strikes the right emotional notes for what follows. She says Anne's diary has a kind mystical quality for the adolescents who first encounter it and for the adults left with its spiritual aftertaste. The power is so strong that Quindlen refers to the shiver that took hold of her has she saw pictures of the original diary in the van der Rol and Verhoeven book. She speaks for all of us when she says Anne was not just a victim, a fugitive, and a metaphor but an ordinary girl with blemishes, worried about boys, parents, clothes and a post-war future.

The authors should be congratulated for their presentation of rarely seen photographs of Anne Frank and her family. There is Anne's mother, Edith, with baby Anne seemingly a few hours old, in a Frankfurt hospital. There is Mum and Dad on their honeymoon; Anne and Margot as toddlers sitting on Dad's knee; the young girls dressed beautifully out shopping with Mum in downtown Frankfurt. These are happy times: family, friends, movies, a day at the beach. But a sombre bell tolls...

Like melancholy drapes blocking the sunlight, the remainder of the book catalogues the Frank family in hiding as Nazism throws its fetid shadow. There are photographs of That List - not Schindler's - but Anne's. Her name appears on the passenger manifest for the last transport from Westerbork to Auschiwitz and then, sadly, on the final Red Cross declaration. The photographs, accompanied by the simple text, are a revelation. This book comes as close as any to capturing Anne's allure. But Anne in "Beyond the Diary" is still somehow beyond reach. We love her diary because we seem to share so much with her. Her last footprints show, in fact, that we probably share very little...


Anne Frank: Ann inner furnace in our souls   January 15, 2000
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Some quirky calculus seems to rule the story of Anne Frank and her diary. The further time recedes from the pivotal events of the diary's origins, the more people seem interested in Anne as a person, Anne as a Holocaust statement, Anne as a publishing phenomenon, or just Anne as a long-lost tragic friend.

I was just thirteen when I read her book, the same age that she started scribbling her thoughts in that famous checked binder with the little metal clasp. Thirteen is an age when childhood lies like freshly cut grass in recent memory, with puberty and adulthood new temptations soon to be savoured. Her original diary seems to kindle some inner furnace in our souls. The magic of the story is that we want to know more, more about Anne, her life, her family, her silent footsteps after the Annex.

Ruud van der Rol and Rian Verhoeven's photographic remembrance of Anne - Beyond the Diary - is a touching and fitting tribute to the Dutch schoolgirl's legacy. Anna's Quindlen's poignant introduction strikes the right emotional notes for what follows. She says Anne's diary has a kind mystical quality for the adolescents who first encounter it and for the adults left with its spiritual aftertaste. The power is so strong that Quindlen refers to the shiver that took hold of her has she saw pictures of the original diary in the van der Rol and Verhoeven book. She speaks for all of us when she says Anne was not just a victim, a fugitive, and a metaphor but an ordinary girl with blemishes, worried about boys, parents, clothes and a post-war future.

The authors should be congratulated for their presentation of rarely seen photographs of Anne Frank and her family. There is Anne's mother, Edith, with baby Anne seemingly a few hours old, in a Frankfurt hospital. There is Mum and Dad on their honeymoon; Anne and Margot as toddlers sitting on Dad's knee; the young girls dressed beautifully out shopping with Mum in downtown Frankfurt. These are happy times: family, friends, movies, a day at the beach. But a sombre bell tolls...

Like melancholy drapes blocking the sunlight, the remainder of the book catalogues the Frank family in hiding as Nazism throws its fetid shadow. There are photographs of That List - not Schindler's - but Anne's. Her name appears on the passenger manifest for the last transport from Westerbork to Auschiwitz and then, sadly, on the final Red Cross declaration. The photographs, accompanied by the simple text, are a revelation. This book comes as close as any to capturing Anne's allure. But Anne in "Beyond the Diary" is still somehow beyond reach. We love her diary because we seem to share so much with her. Her last footprints show, in fact, that we probably share very little...


A Rememberal Girl   May 21, 2001
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I am 14 years old and we just finished a play of the Anne Frank family, and we watched the movie. I chose to read THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL, because the life of Anne had interested me. I really enjoyed this book as it is depresing and horrible what went on in this girls life, it teaches us not to take life for granted and to be happy the way you have it.


Nice Companion to the diary...   June 21, 2000
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This was a nice book to read after the diary. It tells you more about life in the annex and what came of everyone in the annex. I especially enjoyed the hundreds of photographs of Anne and her family. Some of the pictures are rather depressing [the ones of people in concentration camps made me cry].


A very great book.   February 2, 1999
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This book has pictures of Anne Frank and her family. She also writes in her diary about how she feels going in to hiding and wearing a yellow star to show she is Jewish. This is a really fabulous book because it talks about how she feels and what it is like when her and her family go into hiding. They went into hiding because Adolf Hitler started preparing Germany for war. They were sending all Jewish people to camps so that they'd starve and freeze to death. I like this book because sometimes I imagine I'm in hiding and that I get lonely and am not able to have boyfriends or have any friends that I could tell secrets or talk to or trust. When Anne Frank talks about how it feels when you are in hiding you could actually feel how she feels.