Preview
  • Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

  • The Definitive Edition
  • By: Anne Frank
  • Narrated by: Selma Blair
  • Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (6,979 ratings)

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Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

By: Anne Frank
Narrated by: Selma Blair
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Publisher's summary

The definitive edition.

Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has since become a world classic - a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.

In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a 13-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.

©2010 Random House
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Critic reviews

"The new edition reveals a new depth to Anne's dreams, irritations, hardship, and passions....There may be no better way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II than to reread

The Diary of a Young Girl, a testament to an indestructive nobility of spirit in the face of pure evil." (Chicago Tribune)

“The single most compelling personal account of the Holocaust...remains astonishing and excruciating.” (The New York Times Book Review)

Featured Article: The top 100 classics of all time


Before we whipped out our old high school syllabi and dug deep into our libraries to start selecting contenders for this list, we first had to answer the question, "How do we define a classic?" The answer isn’t as straightforward as you might guess, though there’s a lot to be said for the old adage, "You know it when you see it" (or, in this case, hear it). Of course, most critically, each of our picks had to be fabulous in audio. So dust off your aspirational listening list—we have some amazing additions you don’t want to miss.

What listeners say about Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

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Narrator Should Win an Award

I am so grateful to have experienced Anne's diary through the voice of Selma Blair. She did a masterful job of expressing Anne's thoughts exactly as they were most likely meant to be heard/read. I also have the Kindle version and was using the WhisperSync option, but it quickly became apparent that I really didn't want to miss hearing any of this diary from the narrator's gifted ability to bring it to life in the most believable way. Kudos to Selma Blair for bringing Anne's personality to the forefront in her rendition. I imagine I will listen to this one again!

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Classic

Hands down one of the best reads this year. I never imagined there would be such candid accounts from what had to be a well spoken and articulate young woman. This is and if I had to guess will continue to be a classic account of a harrowing time in history all while depicting a families unfortunate attempt to stay sane all while navigating puberty and family squabbles. 5 Star All Day!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully written. Beautifully read.

Read this as a 13 year old and loved it. Enjoyed it even more at age 70. What a clever, well educated, optimistic, introspective young woman. One of life’s goal was to become a great writer and influencer of good. Dear Ann, You did it!
Selma Blair reads it beautifully and made Ann’s diary fresh and even richer than I would have had I read it myself. Great job.

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Remember

I know her story well. The first time I read Anne’s diary I was 15, I thought about how she was my age and I knew what would happen. Broke my heart then, still breaks my heart today. I’m now 37. The way she wrote about her classmates, friends, home life, and boys still rings true and is still the way I remember feeling at her age. With the way the world is at this moment I hope everyone can stop and remember what hate looks like, what hate can do. Remember that little girl who had so much hope.

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Becoming a young lady with four walls

Wow, ever since I read this when I was in High School it made me cry. Anne was just a regular girl trying to know herself, becoming a young a lady within four walls and not being able to enjoy the world like everyone else. She was battling with her own sentiments, not knowing her life was about to be cut short. I always wondered if she ever thought about what she wrote on her diary and felt any regret or those thoughts never came to her mind again. Did she thought about Peter? her family? her cat?
I guess I will never know.

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Must Read

What made the experience of listening to Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl the most enjoyable?

"Enjoyable" is not the word to use in this instance, because you know that Anne, her family, and the rest of the people hidden away in the annex will be taken away at the end of the book. You hear their fates, and it's almost too much to bear. I love that I got the full unabridged version of Anne's diary, including all of the parts about her budding sexuality and anger towards her mother, because Anne was not a cookie cutter girl; she is an icon for our world.

What other book might you compare Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl to and why?

You could try to compare the "Dear America" books, the historical fiction diaries written to make kids feel like they can relate to a certain era in the world. However, Anne's diary was not fiction. It was real. There are some people who would deny the Holocaust or the damage the Nazis did in Europe during WWII. But the fact is that Anne Frank was a real girl who suffered a real battle and died a real, brutal death simply because of her heritage and religion, as did millions of people during that time. You can't deny the raw quality in this version of Anne's diary, and if you did, you'd be lying to yourself. I would compare this book also to Elie Wiesel's "Night"--a direct survivor of the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Anne's story is sort of like the first half of being Jewish in WWII Europe, and Elie's is like what the second half of being Jewish in the camps. His story would give you a better, detailed idea of how much more suffering Anne and the Frank family, along with millions of other people, still experienced after the diary ends.

What does Selma Blair bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

By Selma Blair reading this story, you get that adult sense of Anne rather than the teenager Anne. I feel like Selma really brought a haunting note to this book, since we do know that Anne never reached adulthood. It's as if Anne is reading her diary from another plain where she grew past teenager age. I can't really think of anyone else who could have done a better job than Selma Blair.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I just can't stop remembering how Anne truly wanted and believed that she'd be a famous writer someday. Sometimes she would laugh at herself and say, "I must be crazy for thinking I'll be famous for my writings one day, but I can't stop wanting it." And today, she IS a world renown writer; her diary is the second most-read nonfiction book in the world! It's almost too hard to comprehend that Anne Frank is as famous as she is, and she was just a girl like everyone else. Do not pass up this audiobook; everyone NEEDS to know her story, directly from her diary.

Any additional comments?

I believe it's important to know the history of not only the best ages of the world but the worst ages too, and the Holocaust, I would say, is definitely the worst age in history, especially since it was only in the last decade. It was recently the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation; 70 years might feel like a long time, but it's really not. If we don't understand how certain tragedies and genocides happened, we can't stop them from happening again. Don't disregard Anne's story, because it is a true story that everyone needs to hear. If you had read this book in school, read this unabridged version again as an older reader. If you didn't read this book in school, like me, don't wait another moment.

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2 people found this helpful

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Amazing

the story is so moving and interesting. i love the narrator and its just so amazing! :,) i cant believe that this actually happened

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A Very Touching and Tragic Story

For the most part, the first part of the book is just the rambling of a young girl with little mention of the world around them. Just talk about school, boys and frustrations of a girl about her family.
But as time goes on, you can see her begin to mature and come into her own. Being serious about her future and how she wants to take on and ultimately change the world. And also still such innocence. She becomes more relatable as she is in her 14th and 15th year of life and she sees how childish she was before and how she becomes so grateful of the little things in life and how she sees beauty in the little things. It really shows her becoming a young woman and slowly leaving behind her childhood. It is a tragedy what happened to her and her family.
No one knows what would have become of her love for Peter and if this harsh time would have bonded them in love for life. I think it would have. And maybe it did, in the here after.

I visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam a few weeks ago July 2015, and was moved by what I saw. I touched the walls and doors to physically take in the moment. I would advise you to wait in the very long line it takes to get in if you are ever in Amsterdam. It's worth it. Better yet, try to be there by 6 AM to ensure you won't have to wait long to get in. The line can grow to a good 4+ hours. I had to hear her words and feel her emotions after going there. I hope this review is helpful to you.

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Beautiful

Such a great diary and I am amazed on how opinionated she was for a 15 year old. So real and captivating yet sad too but am enjoyable listen

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Must read for everyone to remind us of the past

Anne, I wish I could have known you. I'll see you in Heaven one day soon.

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