BREAKING
The ongoing count of absentee ballots in B.C.鈥檚 nail-biting 2024 provincial election has put the NDP ahead of the Conservatives in the Surrey-Guildford riding.
With the cooperation of the Anne Frank House, a novel based on Frank's life immediately before she began keeping a diary will be released in September by the children's publisher Scholastic.
"When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary," written by bestselling author Alice Hoffman, is scheduled for Sept. 17.
The project was initiated by Scholastic editors Lisa Sandell and Miriam Farbey, who thought Hoffman ideal for telling the story. Hoffman is known for "Practical Magic" and other fiction about sorcery, but she also has written books for young people and a novel, "The World That We Knew," about the Nazis' persecution of the Jews.
"In the year when I was 12, I discovered many of the books that have meant the most to me, books that changed my life," Hoffman said in a statement issued Thursday by Scholastic.
"The book that affected me more than any other was 'The Diary of a Young Girl,' by Anne Frank. It changed the way I looked at the world. It changed the person I was and the person I would become," she said in the statement. "I wondered what Anne's life had been like before the diary, and what had caused her to become the writer whose voice spoke for a generation of those whose lives were ruined or ended by the Nazi occupation, a voice that will never allow us to forget what had happened."
Hoffman drew upon archival research, including some provided by the Anne Frank House, in writing about the Netherlands in the early 1940s after the Nazis invaded. In July 1942, a month after 13-year-old Anne started her diary, the Franks went into hiding in the annex of her father's office building in Amsterdam. She continued writing until August 1944, when the Franks were discovered by the Nazis. Anne and her sister Margot were eventually deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died in 1945. Their father, Otto, was the only family member to survive the war.
Anne Frank's diary was discovered by Miep Gies, an employee of Otto Frank who had helped the family while they were hiding. After the war, she gave the diary to Otto Frank, who first published it in Dutch in 1947. "The Diary of Anne Frank" has since been translated into dozens of languages and sold millions of copies.
According to Scholastic, Hoffman's novel will dramatize how "state-sponsored discrimination turns ordinary people into monsters, the Jews in the Netherlands are caught in an inescapable swell of violence and hate, and Anne is shaped as both a young woman and as a writer who will change the world" through her private journal.
"We can highly recommend Alice Hoffman's novel of Anne Frank's life, set in the dramatic and terrible circumstances of those first war years. We hope it will persuade young readers that contributing to a better world is both necessary and possible," Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House, based in Amsterdam, said in a statement.
Other novels have been written about Anne Frank, including Ellen Feldman's "The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank," although without the participation of the Anne Frank House. Projects endorsed by the Frank House include Forget Me Not," a children's book about Anne Frank's friends that was written by Janny van der Molen, and a graphic biography of Anne Frank, written by Sid Jacobson and illustrated by Ernie Colon.
The ongoing count of absentee ballots in B.C.鈥檚 nail-biting 2024 provincial election has put the NDP ahead of the Conservatives in the Surrey-Guildford riding.
A group of Cape Breton firefighters are apologizing after four people showed up at a Halloween dance dressed in what appeared to be Ku Klux Klan costumes.
Several Liberal MPs are calling for a secret ballot vote on Justin Trudeau's leadership after he made clear he isn't going anywhere in spite of the calls from within his caucus to step down.
Here's how retirees will get their funds from the federal benefit.
Marred by several delays, the trial of alleged human traffickers Lauriston and Amber Maloney finally got underway on Monday in a Bradford courtroom, with a woman who worked and lived with the couple testifying.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has granted Google a five-year exemption from the Online News Act, ordering it to pay $100 million to Canadian news outlets within 60 days.
An actor known for his roles in the television comedies 鈥淏ob's Burgers鈥 and 鈥淎rrested Development鈥 was sentenced on Monday to one year in prison for his part in a mob's attack on the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago.
A recall has been issued for gummy candies due to pieces of wood, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
An organization that represents clothing recyclers says they鈥檙e frustrated after a W5 investigation found a fake charity and some violent players connected to organized crime have been muscling in on the clothing donation bin industry, and is calling for governments to do more.
Epcor says it has removed more than 20,000 goldfish from an Edmonton stormwater pond.
Witches and warlocks have been flocking to New Brunswick waterways this month, as a new Halloween tradition ripples across the province.
New Brunswicker Jillea Godin鈥檚 elaborate cosplay pieces attract thousands to her online accounts, as well as requests from celebrities for their own pieces.
A new resident at a Manitoba animal rescue has waddled her way into people's hearts.
Hundreds of people ran to the music of German composer and pianist Beethoven Wednesday night in a unique race in Halifax.
He is a familiar face to residents of a neighbourhood just west of Roncesvalles Avenue.
A meteor lit up our region's sky last night 鈥 with a large fireball shooting across the horizon over Lake Erie at around 7:00 p.m.
Residents of Ottawa's Rideauview neighbourhood say an aggressive wild turkey has become a problem.
A man who lost his life while trying to rescue people from floodwaters, and a 13-year-old boy who saved his family from a dog attack, are among the Nova Scotians who received a medal for bravery Tuesday.