Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo

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Summary: Zlata's Diary Review
Review: This book is Zlata's Diary. It is by Zlata Filipovic. It is a compelling story of a girl's world torn apart in 1992 Sarajevo. It tells about the horrors of war, no electricity, no water, & deaths. She saw her friends be taken away and sometimes killed. This black haired, brown eyed girl tells a sad but true story of bombs being dropped & cities being blown up. I would recommend this to a teenager who likes to read diaries or who wants to learn about life in wars.

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Summary: Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo
Review: This book was a window to what children go through during a war. At first I couldn't get used to the style( journal entries) but I did and the story was exeptionally interesting. The main point of the book was to give the outside world a chance to see war through a childs eyes. The ending was both logical and happy. This book changed the way I saw war. No one, especially children, should lose the freedom of playing in the park, going to school, and having sleepovers with friends. Before I read this book, I took all of these things for granted. Hopefully, when others read this book, they will be just as influenced as I was.

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Summary: This Book Reminds You
Review: This chilling book reminded me just how lucky I am. I forget and take it forgranted that I am so lucky and able to live wholeheartedly. I forget that in many places, children must suffer and abandon their childhood because of cold, angry war.

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Summary: 5th graders [from] Caracas Venezuela
Review: We are a group of 5th graders ... We just read the book Zlata's Diary and it was a great book and we decided to give a book review to Amazon.com. It is a book about a depressed girl named Zlata who is living through a war. This war has taken away her childhood. She has recorded her daily life through Mimi, her diary. The book was a little confusing because it had so many names of people we did not know. Even though the war is going on Zlata finds a way to bring humor out. We really think you should read this book because it is informative and intrigung. We highly recommend this book to 5th grade and above

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Summary: The Anne Frank of modern-day Sarajevo
Review: What would happen in your life if your country was involved in an all out wa?. Don't think that it's an impossibility in this modern age. Zlata begins writing her diary commonly enough, telling of her hopes for a ski trip & hopes for spending time in her vacation home. Her life is very normal -- one like you or I have. However, it is turned upside down by war. No heat in the dead of winter, relying on food from people who have escaped, hearing of the deaths of your peers . . . these are the things that Zlata faced -- things that could just have easily happened to you or I.

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Summary: " Zlata's Diary" was a great book.
Review: Zlata Filipovic began writing her diary when she was 11 years old, only a few months before the first barricades went up in Sarajevo. Her diary tells the story of the war and how it effected her life. Many parts were sad, especially when her own friends died. As I was reading and Zlata told about the shells going off, I would get mad because the people who let the shells off were hurting innocent people who did nothing wrong. Sometimes they would have no food, no gas, no water, and no electricity. It is sad when some of her family members leave Sarajevo to go somewhere else. Zlata couldn't walk to her friend's house because it was too dangerous. Zlata's last entry is dated Sunday,October 17,1993. She thought that the war would never end. At the end Zlata didn't write if the war had ended for good or if it kept going on.

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Summary: Bosnian Muslim Propaganda
Review: Zlata is indeed a courageous young girl and her work, if it had not been altered and revsied, would have been a fine piece. However, several articles in the British press challenge her on authenticity. It appears that the original, more child-like transcript, was reworked by political staff in the Bosnian Muslim regime who were working overtime to get more sympathy and support from the West for their cause. As a result, Zlata's proagandistic political statements - very unusual for a gilr of her age - sound exactly like the political partyline from Sarajevo at the time. In fact, journalists for the Independent in London, confirmed tampering by looking at her original writing and at the published version. The sad reality is that the war in Bosnia used classic proaganda methods to get support for one group over another. Zlata's work unfortunately, was but a small part of that massive propaganda effort which ultimately led to the US-led bombing of Bosnia's Serbian community.

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Summary: Little Sarajevo Girl Moves The world with her story of life
Review: Zlata was a young and cheerful girl before a weapon greater then life hit her city Sarajevo. Zlata lost two years of her life because of hatred and man's prejudice. Hatred and prejudice is worse then any weapon. It is the formula for war. Zlata asked herself many times why war came to her life, or why do we have war at all. Zlata over the two years of her life that had war in it she somethimes lived with out electricity, gas, and water. Zlata and her family hide in her basement hoping that the power of love and god would get them through this war together. By: Jenna Ament I found this book to be very moving. It shows you everything to be grateful for. It is a book for people of all ages to read. Zlata used a dairy to write down all of her thoughts and feelings about what was going on in her life. Zlata told you what it is like to lose your childhood, or even worse to wonder if you're going to live the next day. Zlata describe to you what a bombing was and what it felt like to be in one. Zlata's Diary teaches you many of lessons. It tells you of tragedies and the pain that those tragedies caused. Zlata's Dairy is the closet thing your going to get to war without actually living through the experience yourself. I think everyone should read this book to see how lucky you are to have what you have and also to show you that there is no difference big enough between people to risk mans life.

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Summary: Zlata's Story was Sad but not Very Entertaining
Review: Zlata writes of her experiance in the war. It was a pretty good book, I guess, but it was very hard to keep track of the charicters and who they were.

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Summary: Unfortunate Propaganda
Review: Zlata's book is impressive for a child, so impressive that several British journalists soon discovered that entire sections of the original manuscript had been drastically altered - by the Sarajevo regime. The result is that a mere child touts the Bosnian government political party line for the world. At the time, the Bosnian government was working overtime to get world sympathy and to create the image of them as "victims". The end result was to lure the West via NATO into becoming the Bosnian Muslim's airforce and to help in defeating the Serb minority of Bosnia. It worked. Zlata's book makes for interesting reading. Her suffering is real. But the book was used for propaganda purposes and was not entirely written by her. Shame. Young readers should be aware of this and to learn to question anything - especially when it's being spoon-fed to them.