From Publishers Weekly
A graphic firsthand look at the war in Sarajevo by a Croatian girl whose personal world has collapsed, this vivid, sensitive diary sounds an urgent and compelling appeal for peace. Filipovic begins her precocious journal in autumn 1991 as a contented 10-year-old preoccupied with piano and tennis lessons and saturated with American movies, TV shows, books and rock music. Soon the bombs start falling; her friends are killed by shrapnel or snipers' bullets; her family's country house burns down, and they subsist on UN food packages, without gas, electricity or water, as thousands of Sarajevans die. Filipovic, whose circle of friends included Serbs, Croats and Muslims, blames the former Yugoslavia's politicians for dividing ethnic groups and playing hell with people's lives. She and her parents escaped to Paris, and her diary, originally published in Croat by UNICEF, was reissued in France and has already been much written about in the U.S. Photos not seen by PW. 200,000 first printing; film rights to Universal; first serial to Newsweek; author tour Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


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 and snipers; severe shortages of food, water, and gas; and the end of a privileged adolescence in her native Sarajevo. Zlata has been described as the new Anne Frank. While the circumstances are somewhat similar, and Zlata is intelligent and observant, this diary lacks the compelling style and mature preceptions that gave Anne Frank's account such universality. The entire situation in the former Yugoslavia, however, is of such currency and concern that any first-person account, especially one such as this that speaks so directly to adolescents, is important and necessary. While not great literature, the narrative provides a vivid description of the ravages of war and its effect upon one young woman, and, as such, is valuable for today's YAs.Susan H. Woodcock, King's Park Library, Burke, VACopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The harsh realities of the Bosnian conflict are brought to life in this chronicle. Begun in late 1991 when Zlata was ten, the typical musings of a young schoolgirl confiding in her diary are increasingly overtaken by accounts of the horrors of life in besieged Sarajevo. All vestiges of normal life disappear: schools close, electricity and gas are cut off, food and water become scarce, and Zlata becomes a virtual prisoner in the least vulnerable room of the family flat. As friends and family members are killed in the conflict, Zlata describes the events that have made her a "child without a childhood." This plea for help from an innocent victim is enhanced by the authentic Slavic voice of narrator Dorota Puzio. Recommended.Linda Bredengerd, Hanley Lib., Univ. of Pittsburgh, Bradford, Pa.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Eleven-year-old Zlata Filipovic describes her life in Sarajevo as the clouds of war build, advance and consume her city. The diary is a powerful and moving document and has been released in print and audio simultaneously. Dorota Puzio, a native of Poland, reads with a soft Eastern European accent and the emotional intensity that the diary requires. Her clear pronunciation helps the listener with unfamiliar names. She captures the growth Zlata experiences as she leaves her protected childhood behind and begins to live the day-to-day hardship and deprivation of a city under siege. Zlata's Diary is a poignant plea for peace and a testament to the futility and waste of war. This sensitive production allows the reader to hear a young girl who cries out for peace. L.R.S. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


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 to Newsweek, and Zlata and her parents will be visiting here this month. Donna Seaman


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.


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French