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Texas Center for the Book
Letters About Literature Essay Contest 2000
Level One Winner
Heather Anne Cale
Little Switzerland Academy, New Caney
Dearest Anne Frank,
I have written this letter to inform you that your diary was an inspiration to me and to many others. I have cherished your life, as I have honored you in death. I wanted to choose someone's life that I admired and that I would enjoy writing an analysis of , and I chose you.
Your life-long dreams led me to a new perspective of life, as well as a fresh vision of death. Life is not about material things and appearances. It is freedom and the ones you love that truly matter. Your love kept me reading through your diary, and your sorrow has sunken deep into my heart and soul, but through and through, it has shown me a wish. My wish is that you had not died, but lived on and on, enjoying life and sharing your gifts with others, until you died peacefully as a weary and contented old woman in a warm home.
However, you did not die this way. I mourn your passing, but I regret even more the merciless way by which you passed on. I have grown up in such a perfect world that I had not known that such cruelty existed. Yet your soul drowned in it, just out of the reach of help. The holocaust was a horrifying event in history that has devastated millions of lives around the world.
I also want to declare that your intelligence at the age of thirteen has fascinated me very much. Compared to the average child at the current time, you are a regular genius (sociable, smart, and cultured). I bring up this subject because I hope that, when I am thirteen, I can be like you in this way.
When bomb alarms sounded you learned a lesson, the same lesson that you taught me: the lesson of tolerating and defeating all evil and fear in the environment around you. You realized this early in your life, though without your diary, it would have taken me years to realize it for myself.
Also, if I had been in your position, I would have gone insane just from so much time being imprisoned in my own home. I am grateful for what I have: a warm home, plenty of food, and a lot of space to move around outside. You became grateful for what you had, even though you had a small home, limited supply of food, and little space to be alone or to run about freely. I have learned to appreciate those things I had previously taken for granted. Confronted with such lack, you were much stronger and more accepting than I could ever have been in this situation.
With your love, hope, and honesty, you are an inspiration. You left behind for the world more gifts than many who live entire lifetimes. I thank you for each lesson I have gained because of you.
Heather Anne Cale
Little Switzerland Academy
New Caney, Texas
© The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. (Used by permission.)