Zlata's Diary

Plot

Product Description An international bestseller, the extraordinary diary that awakened the world's conscience is now updated with a new Introduction by the author. The only bright thing to come from [Sarajevo's] recent history.--USA Today. From Booklist Zlata Filipovic of Sarajevo began keeping her diary in 1991, just before her eleventh birthday. Ebullient and accomplished, Zlata recorded the swirl of activities she avidly pursued, from school to piano lessons, skiing, parties, and watching her favorite TV shows, all American. We immediately sense that Zlata and her family have a deep love for their country, but just as we begin to enjoy Zlata's fine young mind and cheerful disposition, the chaos and terror of war shatter her world. Schools close, socializing becomes too risky, and what was once a cozy home is transformed into a fragile shelter bereft of electricity or water. In spite of great tragedy and deprivation, Zlata keeps making her lucid diary entries, carefully chronicling the claustrophobia, boredom, resignation, anger, despair, and fear war brings. Another birthday passes, and Zlata's observations become even sharper and more searing. The convoys of fleeing citizens remind her of movies she's seen of the Holocaust; she notices that grief and hardship have made her valiant parents haggard and sorrowful; and she can't believe that her clothes no longer fit. How could she be growing when she has so little to eat? With a precision and vision beyond her years, Zlata writes that the "political situation is stupidity in motion," and more hauntingly, "life in a closed circle continues." Zlata brings Sarajevo home as no news report can. Her diary was first published by UNICEF, then released in France; U.S. serial rights have gone toNewsweek, and Zlata and her parents will be visiting here this month.Donna Seaman From Publishers Weekly Ten-year-old Croatian Filipovic's graphic, firsthand account of life in embattled Sarajevo was a nine-week PW bestseller. Photos.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Zlata Filipovic wrote her diary between September 1991 and October 1993. Following its publication, she was awarded the Special Child of Courage Award by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. She and her family left Sarajevo in December of 1993, and used the proceeds from the book to launch a charity for child victims of the Bosnian war. Review The only bright thing to come from [Sarajevos] recent history. ("USA Today") Conveys the bewilderment and horror of modern-day conflict... One of Zlatas gifts lies in throwing a human light on intolerable events. ("San Francisco Chronicle")The only bright thing to come from [Sarajevoas] recent history. ("USA Today") Conveys the bewilderment and horror of modern-day conflict... One of Zlataas gifts lies in throwing a human light on intolerable events. ("San Francisco Chronicle") From Kirkus Reviews Originally published in Croat by UNICEF, this is the wartime diary of a Sarajevo girl who has since moved to Paris. Zlata began keeping her diary at the age of 11, nearly eight months before the shelling of Sarajevo began. A chronicle that begins in September 1991 with Zlata buying school supplies is forced, by March 1993, to reckon with the fact that all ``the schools near me are either unusable or full of refugees.'' Zlata's voice, understandably, has difficulty maturing at a pace demanded by the events it records, and some passages communicate more bathos than outrage or insight. But that's history's fault, not Zlata's. (First serial rights to Newsweek) --Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. From School Library Journal YA-From September 1991 through October 1993, young Zlata Filipovic kept a diary. When she began it, she was 11 years old, concerned mostly with friends, school, piano lessons, MTV, and Madonna. As the diary ends, she has become used to constant bombing an