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Summary: A tragic and very human tale of lost childhood in Sarajevo..
Review: I encountered Zlata's Diary in an adolescent psychology class in college. Her haunting words became the impetus behind my subsequent research in law school and other work relating to the wars in the former Yugoslav republics. I can vouch for the authenticity of Zlata Filopovic's account. Zlata's words portray a true picture of what life was like during the blockade of Sarajevo, and the feeble attempts by the international community to do something about it. This is appropriate reading material for high school students, as well as adults who simply want to understand the horrors of the Bosnian civil war. One note of caution, however; it is not an easy book to read.
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Summary: Make the Best of Your Situation
Review: I feel that it is a great book but I disliked that it was a diary. It was worth reading because it shows many important lessons in life. For example, Zlata always made the best of her situation, like when it is someone's birthday they try to make it as special as they could by giving presents, cooking with wood burning stoves because there is no electricity, and try to forget about the war and enjoy themselves. It is also a good book because a young girls viewpoint of war was given, showing how the war actually affected her life and emotions. Just by reading this book and seeing how Zlata suffers illustrate how hard we should try to prevent war.
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Summary: Zlata's Diary
Review: The plot of "Zlata's Diary", by Zlata Filipovic, is interesting because it is very detailed of the war in Sarajevo and the life of the people there.I liked this book because i'v learnd about the war in Sarajevo in 1991 and about the life of a girl who lived in the war. She talks about her feelings of the war, what she does in her spare time, and everything about what went on during the war. I liked this book because Zlata is always talkind\g about how she worries about all the innocent people in the Sarajevo war. I liked the part when Zlata said NO ONE AND NOTHING HERE IS NORMAL!I also liked it when she said,"I will try to get through all this, with your help Mimmy[her diary], hoping that it will all pass and... that I will be a child again, living my childhood in peace.I liked the way Zlata was concerned about everyone elses lives and not just her own. I would recommend this book to everyone ages 12 and up.
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Summary: 5th graders [from] Caracas Venezuela
Review: The story of Zlata Filipovic is a very touching story of a young girl that escaped the terrors of war not just physically, but through writing in her diary which she fondly refers to as "Mimmie." This story brings a sense of reality to the wars that we read about in newpapers and watch on TV - it tells the stories of people just like you and me who find themselves caught in the middle of the ugliness of war. Zlata's story has an added sense of innocence to it because it is told through the writings of a child - through her eyes in the way she saw it. Zlata Filipovic is the story of a courageous individual, who as we see in the book along with her fmily managed to escape the horrors of war after writing her story. I feel that her story gives us a similar perspective to that which Anne Frank gave us through the diary which she kept during World War II.
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Summary: Open your Eyes
Review: This book is an atrocity against the truth. It is composed in the spirit of Anne Frank (i.e. hijacked the memory of a Jewish girl who died in the Holocaust) and was greatly tampered with by the Bosnian government. The ploy was not even toned down....near the end Zlata becomes a mouthpiece of Alija Izetbegovic. Those who may not have noticed the cunning little hints and enticing propaganda all along then are bewildered why we do not hear about the girl, but rather about the politics of the period. This book is especially shameful in that it attempts to draw revolting parallels between the siege of Sarajevo and the Holocaust (via the Anne Frank motif, of course). The hypocrisy of this is incredible. Alija Izetbegovic, of course, tried to join the SS HANDZAR division in Bosnia at the age of 15. He was too young to slaughter Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, though. So instead, he manipulates world opinion by selling us this grotesque notion, using the legacy of the very people that suffered at the hands of the Bosnian Moslems (and Croats) during WWII (i.e. the Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies), to cloud up the truth. The siege wasn't nearly as bad as is portrayed in this propagandist's fantasy book. The two most notorious massacres, the Vase Miskina and Markale massacres were, as it was later seen, perpetrated by the Bosnian government to inspire sympathy in the West, and an accusation and military action against the Serbs. This well-crafted piece of propaganda, among other such tools, was to have a cruel effect in forming world opinion and precluding the voice of the Serbs of Sarajevo, who were suffering a far worse fate than the Moslems and Croats. Within this "moral city" Moslem and Croat paramilitary units were operating and slaughtering thousands of Serbs, killing and raping some in their homes, dragging others off to camps to torture them. Hundreds of these Serbian bodies were found piled up, decapitated, in a canyon on nearby Mt. Trebevic. The perpetrators go by names such as Jusuf Prazina Juka, Musan Topalvic Caco, Ismet Bajramovic Celo 1, Ramiz Delalic Celo 2, etc. As for camps, my father's best friend, who was NOT a Serb but was accused of being a Serb by his Moslem neighbors, was abducted, forced into a Moslem-run concentration camp in this "worthy metropolis", and killed by having his head cut off.
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Summary: Zlata's Diary
Review: Zlata's Diary by, Zlata Filipovic is a tremendously exciting book. This book was defiantly a page-turner for two main reasons. First, the thoughts and feelings coming from this 11-year old girl is phenomenal. Second, her story starts out like any other and it is incredible to see how much her life is affected by a war. A girl having a near to perfect life, going through a war, then having her friends and family ripped apart. The reader thins they can predict how things are going to turn out, then all of the sudden, it all changes. I loved this book because of it's theme and I recommend this book to anybody who has the chance to read it!
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Summary: Modern-day Anne Frank
Review: Zlata's Diary is a masterpiece. A modern-day Diary of Anne Frank is what comes to mind when I think about this book. Zlata is a girl from Sarajevo, writing as only a child can write about terrors that only adults can inflict. From start to finish, this remarkable books keeps you hoping and praying, for Zlata and for her family and friends. Her diary begins before the war, with typical young-girl items like piano lessons and parties, but quickly becomes a nightmare of bombs and guns. She escapes to Paris, and looks back with sorrow. It is a truly moving text. Zlata writes as any girl would write, in the beginning. The early part of her diary (it begins in September 1991) deals with ideas about school starting and what happened last summer. Short entries into a girl's diary, not too deep, somewhat interesting but also very typical. She could be any girl in any city in this country. She talks about her friends, her favorite TV shows, her music lessons, and enjoying pizza. She is 11 years old. But in less than a year, all of that changes. She is writing letters and entries recounting horrible events of warfare. Less than a year after she was wondering about the top songs on MTV and her music and friends, she was writing profound letters of love, life and survival. She recounts hiding in dark, ugly cellars, and hearing bombs dropping, and being very afraid. She writes of her friend Nina who died in of shrapnel in the brain -- another 11 year old girl, just like Zlata. They went to kindergarten together, they played together. Now Nina was dead. Zlata and members of her family escaped to Paris by December 1993; the diary ends at that point. Zlata grew up tremendously, much as Anne Frank did, during those few years of the war. She learned the terminology and dangers of war as well as any professional soldier. She learned the horrors and deprivations. She also remained a little girl, with her childish, childlike hope for peace for all. She escaped, but how many didn't? Published in 1994 while there was still fighting in Sarajevo, this is a book of hope. And sadly the fighting hasn't stopped in that part of the world. Children have lost parents, siblings, family members, friends, and their whole way of life. It is for them that Zlata wrote her diary. We should remember them.
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Summary: A window into war.
Review: Zlata's Diary is a very, very real book. It is about a girl who is in the middle of a war in Sarajevo. I would not suggest this to children, because it is not a 'fun' book to read but is very good and gives you a wonderful appreciation of a child's life in war. If you are looking for an autobiography, I would pick this one up.
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Summary: An honest overview of Zlata's book from some1 who was there!
Review: Zlata's diary is an overall so-so book. It does not have the literal quality, nor the originality of Anne Frank's diary, but it has something else very important: a clear picture of what was going on in Sarajevo during the beginning of the Bosnian war.(Remember, Zlata left in mid of 1993, there were two and a half more years that other Sarajevans spent in war...This book was a view of a girl, 11 years old, who saw the people that were her neighbors until yesterday go to the mountains around the city and shoot at her, her family and friends, and innocent many others she didn't know but she felt sad for...Zlata gives out a picture of what it was like to live under fire every day, where your every move could be your last, where you are not safe not in your home, nor deep underground in the shelter. It was a time of sadness for Sarajevo, which used to be one of Europe's most metropolitan cities. Zlata's diary serves not to spread propaganda and evoke sadness in the West and make sure it does something,this book is so the West can be ashamed of what it didn't do. It is a great reference for anyone who plans to write about, or visit Sarajevo.
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Summary: Zlata's Diary
Review: Zlata's diary, it is written by Zlata Filipovic. It takes place in Sarajevo,Bosnia between 1991-1993. There was a war going on and Zlata is a victim. What she does to express her feelings is write them down in journal form. In my opinion I really enjoyed this book, it showed many interresting things and points about war. One point is that no child nor an adult should go through this rough time. In this time period it was so rough that they had no electricity, wayer or even gas for heat. Another point is that this book is really good because it has a happy endings. I like happy endings because they make you cheerful after all of the sad, mad and hurtful times, which Zlata's Diary did. This character is Zlata, she's very wise and thoughtful because she knows what to do when something goes wrong and when someone is hurt she trys to cheer them up. Zlata is also scared because when something happens that is really bad she crys or gets really careless, This is the main character and is my favorite. The theme of the book is a young girl writing down her thoughts about how she feels about this war and how it effects her. I would reccomend this book to any person age is 10 and up because it is a higher level book and contains alot of information. It would most likely be a girl because they would like to hear about rough times and they might even have a diary of their own. Last I hope you will try to consider this book to read.
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