| ’s Diary By Zlata Filipovic Penguin Essay, Research Paper
Zlata’s Diary
By Zlata Filipovic
Penguin Books c. 1995
Zlata’s Diary is a book about a young girl’s life during a war in Sarajevo.
As the book begins, Zlata Filipovic is a normal little girl going to school and
having fun. She has lots of friends, does well in school, has a wonderful
family life, and is as happy as any little girl could want to be. Slowly, throughout
the book, things start to get worse.
She starts out talking about her grades and how happy she had been with
school, and how the biggest of her worries is that she is sick on her birthday.
Then she moves on to talk about the war in Dunbrovnik and how she is
praying for them. Slowly, the war starts to move to Sarajevo. The book goes
from, “I am tired, but happy,” to, “My life is one of no electricity, no water, no
gas, no school which isn’t school, rice, macaroni, a bit of green beans from
Meleca’s garden, the occasional sweets, my piano, and of course you, Mimmy.”
I really enjoyed the begining of the book, but I felt that after awhile it was
the same thing over, and over again. For example, June 23, “The electricity went
out at eight o’clock last night.” July 7, “There was no water yesterday, or the day
befor, or the day befor that.”She goes on to say the same thing repetitivly only
days later and throughout the whole book. I think the book would have been
better for younger kids. I think kids that were more around Zlata’s age could have
related to her better. I was also dissapointed about the emotion she had, To
explain that she was sad she would simply say, “Boo-Hoo.” Her friends would die
ir her family members would leave and that was the only emotion she would
express. She didn’t really write how she felt in a way we could relate to. I think,
if she would have had more emotion, and also not so much repetitive writing, we
could have understood her better and I believe I would have enjoyed the book
more.
Bibliography
Zlata’s Diary Book report
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