Books That Find You

I've been reading all my life and it's interesting to look back and realize that you don't choose some books, some books choose you.

Have you ever had that happen to you? A book that just speaks to your personal situation that you are going through, falls into your hands at just the right time.

This happened to me for the first time the summer when I was nine years old. I was already reading at a high school level and my grandmother found a box of books in her alley that someone had left when they had moved away. She drug the box into the garage and knowing how I inhaled books, told me to take whatever ones I wanted. They were adult books and I was enthralled by being able to go through the box and pick and choose the ones I wanted.

One of the books appealed to me more as it seemed to be a child's book. It was called, "The Diary of Anne Frank" and the cover showed a photo of a twelve year old girl. That was very interesting to me. I opened it up and began to read it.

I had already read, "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" so I was somewhat familiar with the story of a man named Hitler who wanted to kill Jews and made many people flee their country to save their lives. The story of Anne hiding in an attic and telling the story of her experience living with her family seemed romantic and exciting.

I eagerly read through it not realizing that I was reading a read diary of a real girl and not a work of fiction. I still didn't understand the difference.

The end of the book was abrupt and I turned the last page in confusion not understanding why it did not end with Anne and her family leaving the attic and getting on with real life again.

Then I found the back page which said that Anne and most of her family were captured and killed in a concentration camp. I was in total shock that this Anne I had been reading about who was so real to me was killed.

Suddenly, I understood the difference between a book of fiction and a biography and that real life did not always have happy endings.

I was very sad and the story of Anne in the attic has stayed with me all my life. I am so glad that I met Anne when I was a child and could read her diary with the innocence that she wrote it and did not read the book for the first time as an adult already understanding the reality of what had happened to her.