War in itself is disgusting, as it transforms people into beasts and depreciates human life.
-Antoine de Saint Exupery
War… what a small word. So much blood, pain and tears are connected to this word. I read little books about war because they are very sad and they are not popular and one of the books that I read about war is Zlata’s Diary which is written by Zlata Filipovic. It has the extraordinary national bestseller award. "Zlata’s Diary" has been published a few times during only one year 1994 and has republished then in English in 1995, 1998, 2004 and 2006. It has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Netherlands, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Chinese and Korean languages. This book’s genre is an autobiography.
The most important characters in this book are: Zlata who is the main character in this book and is a girl who writes in her diary about what has happened and about her joys and worries. Also some other characters in this book are Zlata’s mother and father, Zlata’s best friend Mirna, and all other Zlata’s and Zlata’s parents’ friends.
Zlata is a normal girl who goes to school, takes piano lessons and has many friends. She has lots relatives who visit her and she visits them, she has parents who go to work every day and take care of her and also has a pet canary called Cicko. Zlata writes in her diary about her normal everyday life, when the war begins. Zlata feels very, very sad when her friends and relatives start leaving Sarajevo because they are afraid of war. Now it’s not the same anymore: it’s not safe to walk on the streets, there is no more school and food is very rare to find. When Zlata’s relatives give Zlata and her family an orange it is a very big miracle for Zlata. Zlata writes in her diary about how she feels about war; how she feels when her relatives, neighbors and friends are dead or injured and how it is to not be able to go outside and have no electricity or water. Zlata is very sad when her friend, an 11 year old girl Nina, died in the park from a sudden bomb. She didn’t want to die when she was only 11 years old. She was an innocent girl and was just a child! Zlata does not like the war: it takes away people who she loved. In the war there is the sound of guns firing, the sad news of people dying and the horrible sights of buildings on fire. It does nothing good to anyone or anything. It just kills and destroys. That is how Zlata feels when all this happens. She wrote in her diary: “I keep asking why? What for? Who’s to blame? I ask but there’s no answer. Among my friends, among our friends and in our family there are Serbs, Croats and Muslims... We communicate not with bad, and with the good. And among good, as well as among bad, there are Serbs, Croats and Muslims.” Zlata hates war. She longs for peace. “I want it to stop forever. PEACE! PEACE!” she writes in her diary. Zlata just wants to leave and escape from war-torn Sarajevo but she can’t leave behind her dad. But her summer school teaches decides to publish Zlata’s diary if it is OK with Zlata and it was OK so many photographers and journalists came to Zlata’s house to talk to her. After that the journalists invite Zlata and her parents to France so they decide to go.
I think that the author’s message in this book is that war is horrible and it doesn’t help anyone. The author wants to show that in any moment war could come and destroy love and family or even life. The author also tells and shows how senseless war is and hopes that maybe one day people will learn how to solve their problems in peace. The theme of this book is war and hope because Zlata always hoped that the war would end.
I think that everyone should read this book to truly understand how it feels to be in a war. When I read this book I had a very sad and scary feeling. But that is still not one thousandth of how people who lived through war felt. Also I think that everyone has to read this book to understand that war is suffering, tears and death and when there is war, children do not get a chance to have a proper childhood. I recommend this book to everyone because we have a peaceful life and we don’t understand how it feels to live during war and that’s why some of us play war games with such easiness. We have to learn how to hate war and exactly books like Zlata’s Diary will help us do that.
I rate this book 10 out of 10 because I hope that when you will be reading this book you will maybe even just a little understand the horrors of war. And then maybe war won’t happen again. And even the word war will maybe disappear from all the dictionaries in the world.
