From the Diary of Anne Frank

'The Diary of a Young Girl'

The published form of Anne's diary, which she received for her thirteenth birthday and wrote from 12 June 1942 to 1 August 1944. Otto, her father and the one member of the group in hiding to come through alive, found it safe after the war and arranged for it to be translated out of Dutch and printed.

Why does Anne find writing in a diary a strange experience?

She had never written anything before, and she doubted that she or anyone else would later care about the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. She writes anyway, because she feels the need to get things off her chest.

'Paper has more patience than people'

The saying Anne recalls on a listless, depressed afternoon. Paper will accept anything written on it without interrupting, judging or tiring — which is exactly what she cannot find in the people around her.

What is the real reason Anne gives for starting the diary?

She has no true friend. She is careful to say she is not literally alone — she has loving parents, a sister and around thirty people she calls friends — but not one person she can genuinely confide in.

Why does Anne feel friendless despite having about thirty friends?

With them she thinks only of having a good time and can never move past ordinary everyday talk. They do not confide in one another, and she is honest enough to allow that the fault may be her own.

Kitty

The name Anne gives her diary so that it becomes the friend she lacks rather than a record of facts. Addressing it as a person is why she explains her family background to it, as she would to someone who did not already know her.

Why does Anne provide a brief sketch of her life, although she dislikes doing it?

Because she is writing to Kitty as though to a real friend, and nobody would understand her stories if she plunged straight in. The sketch treats the diary as an outsider who needs the background, even as she addresses it as an intimate.

'Plunked down on the table as a birthday present for Margot'

How Anne describes her own arrival in Holland in February, following her sister. The casual, self-mocking phrasing is characteristic: she treats her own place in the family as a joke rather than a grievance.

What tells you that Anne loved her grandmother?

Her grandmother's illness in 1941 muted her birthday, and after her death in January 1942 Anne writes that no one knows how often she still thinks of her and loves her. At the next birthday, her grandmother's candle was lit along with the others.

Mrs Kuperus

The headmistress who taught Anne's sixth form. At the end of the year the two of them said a heartbreaking farewell and were both in tears — one of several signs that Anne formed strong attachments to the adults around her.

Why does Anne call teachers the most unpredictable creatures on earth?

The class is waiting to hear who will move up a form, and nobody can guess how the teachers will decide. By her own reckoning a quarter of the class deserves to be kept back, but the outcome does not follow from what students deserve.

Why was Mr Keesing annoyed with Anne, and what did he do about it?

She talked incessantly in his maths class. After several warnings he set her extra homework — an essay arguing the case for her own habit, under the title 'A Chatterbox'.

How did Anne justify being a chatterbox in her first essay?

She granted that talking is a student's trait and promised to keep it in check, but argued she could never cure it: her mother talked as much as she did, if not more, and there is little anyone can do about an inherited trait.

The three essay topics Mr Keesing set Anne

'A Chatterbox', then 'An Incorrigible Chatterbox' when she carried on talking, and finally 'Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Mistress Chatterbox'. The escalating titles track his patience running out, and the third was openly meant to make fun of her.

Anne's poem about the ducklings

Her answer to the third essay, written in verse with help from her friend Sanne: a mother duck and a father swan whose three ducklings are bitten to death by the father for quacking too much. She met a mocking title with a joke of her own.

What made Mr Keesing finally allow Anne to talk in class?

He took her verse joke the right way. He read the poem aloud to her class, adding remarks of his own, and repeated it to other classes besides. From then on she was free to talk and was set no further extra homework.

Was Mr Keesing a strict teacher?

Strict but not harsh. He warned her repeatedly before setting any punishment, and the punishments were essays rather than penalties. He laughed at her arguments, enjoyed her poem enough to read it to other classes, and ended up making jokes himself.

How is Anne's diary different from an ordinary diary?

She refuses to jot down facts the way most people would. By naming it Kitty and writing to it as a friend, she turns the entries into conversation — reflective, self-questioning and often funny, rather than a dated record of events.

What does Anne's handling of Mr Keesing reveal about her character?

She meets an awkward situation with wit rather than resentment. Set a punishment three times over, she argues her way out of the first, sees through the third as a joke at her expense, and answers it in verse — winning the teacher over instead of defying him.

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