My Secret Diary

by Janine Phillips

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Edmund Chattoe-Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good little book that probably deserves to be better known. The author doesn't say if she rewrote some of it when translating it from the Polish (and in fact there is surprisingly little context to the text) but, if not, is an extraordinary thing for a ten year old to have written. Basically, it is the diary of a Polish girl living in a village near Warsaw over a year that includes the invasion of Poland by the Nazis and very well captures the strange mix of domestic detail and rumours of world events that one imagines a child would perceive. A feeling for the time is thrown up almost in passing (as poaching ceases to be a "crime" and becomes an essential food source and the old communal village bread oven is opened up again.) But you also get a feeling for the author's family and there is some very dry humour where an adult would clearly recognise what the child has failed to notice. If you are interested in WWII or Poland or just detailed history in general, this is well worth your time.

[Lenka Bosse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't understand why this book doesn't have better ratings. I really enjoyed reading it (even though I am not polish) and found it very interesting to find out about life at that time as I never experienced it ( I'm 21). I found Janine's writing very good and really aware for a 10 year old child.

[Samanta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives an insight in an ordinary family's life during the 2nd world war.
Three stars because it is an easy read and because I have a connection to Poland and can see some similarities to my relatives' lives. Polish doughnuts, drinking alcohol and the farming life. Those little things made me smile and despite the awful war it showed that people done their best during the war.
I thought the plan of hiding the potatoes from the Germans was excellent!

The most amazing thing about this book is the writing skills of the little girl. Our 10 year old children today can't write as good as the children did over 70 years ago.

I don't think many people will like reading this book unless they are Polish, a child reading another child's diary, someone studying people during the time of war or just interested in other cultures.
The names of the people(Tadeusz, Irka, Danuska, Wojtek, Pampela) are difficult to remember as they are unusual in other countries.

[Meaghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I'm not sure why this book was published. Being the diary of a Polish child at the start of World War II, I thought it would be about the war, like Zlata's Diary from Sarajevo in the 1990s. But Janine's diary hardly touches on the war. Instead she writes about her family and her pet dog and her general life, which was about as boring as any ten-year-old's life. Furthermore, there was no context to the book -- no introduction or list of characters to explain who each person was and what relation they were to Janine. Pass over this one.

[Martha Yuliana · Rating 3 out of 5]

reading few beginning parts from this book reminds me on my chilhood..though there was no more war in my time compared with the story situation