Zlata’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