Reading an 11-year-old’s diary when she’s a happy child and then suffering the fates of the Bosnian War is tragic and sad. Pages of the diary were published during the war in 1991-93 when she lived in Sarajevo, and she knew she was being compared to Anne Frank. Her writing is exemplary for her age but she never understood why there was a war and why peace wasn’t coming. She was both hopeful and sometimes suicidal as friends were killed and families, friends, and neighbors were displaced. From the introduction we learn her family eventually escapes to Paris and from Wikipedia we learn she went to Oxford and now champions the cause of children suffering through war. Of course an inspiration. Reading about war from a child’s perspective is eye-opening to say the least. I am glad she left us this legacy. ( )

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Meh. Zlata writes without the level of emotion required to draw me in. Quite a bit of it was just a relaying of events. She seems largely disconnected from what was going on around her. ( )

It's hard to rate & review a diary. I found this enlightening, given my relative ignorance in respect to wartime in Sarajevo in the early 1990's. However, it wasn't what I would call a gripping read. But then again, it was written by an 11-year-old. I did find the included photos interesting, and after finishing the book I of course had to go google Zlata Filipovic. There are a few interesting Youtube videos of her in recent years. She seems to be very well-spoken and worldly. ( )