Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 5-12. The book's subtitle is somewhat misleading. Two sisters on an Iowa farm were, indeed, pen pals with Anne Frank and her sister, but Anne wrote only two letters; only one still exists. Rubin focuses on that connection and on the contrast between the pen pals. Alternating chapters tell of the war years in Iowa--safe, busy, unaware of genocide; then there's Anne's story--the family in hiding and finally transported to the camps. For the Iowa story, Rubin draws on extensive interviews with a surviving sister and others who remember. The Amsterdam story serves as an excellent biography of Anne and an updated overview of the Diary, explaining its content and history, including how it was found, censored, published, dramatized, and argued about. With the exception of a few photos and a facsimile of the letter to Iowa, there's very little new about Anne. What will hold all those readers of her Diary is the contrast between Anne and the innocent kids from Iowa, who had no idea what it meant to be Jewish. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2003 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Although the promise of newly rediscovered correspondence from Anne Frank can hardly fail to generate excitement, the "letters" here (held since 1988 by the Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance) are likely to disappoint. The correspondence consists of one letter each from Anne and her sister, Margot, to their new American pen pals (arranged through Anne's school), plus a postcard with Anne's comments about bridges and canals in Amsterdam, and the letters are understandably impersonal. Rubin (Degas and the Dance) even suggests, without explanation, that the girls' father may have had a hand in them: "It is believed that Anne's first draft was in Dutch, and then her father, Otto Frank, translated the words and had her redo the letter in English." The rest of the book revisits previously available information about the Franks, juxtaposed with the wartime experiences of the Frank girls' erstwhile pen pals, the sisters Juanita and Betty Wagner, from Danville, Iowa. Unfortunately, the book overdramatizes the connection between the Franks and the Wagners. For example, Rubin writes that the Wagner girls immediately replied to the letters reproduced here (dated April 27 and April 29, 1940), then "waited and waited" for responses and "wondered why" they heard nothing-even though by mid-May they knew, from their teacher, that Germany had invaded Holland and cut off communication. Abundant visuals include photos, movie stills and ephemera. Like the text, however, the contrast between the illustrations of wartime Holland and those of homefront America suggests a chasm more than a link. Ages 10-up. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-This book explores and compares the impact of World War II on the lives of two sisters in the United States and two in the Netherlands. It is held together by the correspondence between Juanita Wagner, a girl growing up in Iowa, and Anne Frank in Amsterdam. The girls were matched as pen pals in 1939, and they exchanged a total of two letters before the war interrupted their budding friendship. The author details what happened to them and their families throughout the war years and thereafter. Throughout, she tends to assume that the brief correspondence had a significant impact on the girls' lives and that it was frequently on their minds. This is especially questionable in Anne's case, as her pen pal is never mentioned in her copious journal entries. Nonetheless, this is a compelling read that highlights the reality of war at home and abroad, and readers are bound to be moved by the story. Hopefully it will inspire them to tackle Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (Doubleday, 1995) and Mirjam Pressler's Anne Frank: A Hidden Life (Dutton, 2000).-Laura Reed, Kitchener Public Library, Ontario, Canada (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) In 1939, ten-year-old Juanita Wagner of Iowa began a short-lived -- two exchanges of letters -- pen pal relationship with a girl in the Netherlands: Anne Frank. And while Juanita (and her older sister Betty, who had received a letter from Anne's sister Margot) would wonder what had happened to the Franks in the war, it was not until after the production of The Diary of Anne Frank on Broadway in 1955 that the sisters realized who their pen pals had been. Although Rubin occasionally leans too hard on the glancing relationship between the pairs of sisters, her account of the war on two home fronts, recounting the Frank family's hiding and eventual imprisonment and the Wagners' school days and wartime employment, provides a broadening context for Anne's famous diary. Rubin wisely eschews much retelling of Anne's days in hiding, and her coverage of later events, includingthe publication and reception of the diary, is illuminating in its demonstration of Anne Frank's reach. Illustrated with photographs, the book includes a combined bibliography and reading list and an index. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In 1939, a schoolgirl in Iowa picked a name from a list of children in Holland to be her pen pal; she chose Anne Frank. A cache of correspondence from the girl whose Diary is one of the most famous books of all time would be big news indeed; in fact, Anne sent only one letter. Dated April 29, 1940, the letter gives some facts about Anne's school and her postcard collection. Nevertheless, Rubin uses this letter as a vehicle for telling Anne's story alongside Juanita Wagner's wartime experiences. There is much speculation about whether Anne was thinking about her pen pal: a quote from Anne's diary that she stuffed some old letters into her schoolbag to take with her to the Annex raises the question: "Were the 'old letters' from her pen-pals in Iowa?" Amazingly, when Juanita wrote to Anne after the war, the letter reached Otto Frank, who responded with a long handwritten letter about Anne's capture and death. This letter did not survive. Every bit of information about the time Anne spent in the concentration camp before her death, every photograph--and there are some new ones here--fascinates. However, the bland correspondence, if one can call it that, provides a weak premise for another book about Anne Frank. (Nonfiction. 11+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
