Angela Barrett: Anne Frank

Sometimes posts have an eerie way of reflecting current events, and this one is no exception. Anne Frank is an illustrated biography for children by Josephine Poole, which tells the story of Anne’s short life with tenderness and clarity. “The story of Anne Frank begins with an ordinary little girl, someone you might sit next to in class. She had large, expressive eyes and dark, curly hair.”

It covers her birth in 1929, the family’s friendship with Miep Gies, their move to Amsterdam, the two-year concealment in the secret annex, her growing feelings for Peter van Pels, and – inevitably – the family’s discovery and Anne’s death of typus in 1945.

Details on the historical context are sparse, choosing instead to focus on Anne and her experiences, but there is mention of the reparations Germany had to pay after World War I, the rise of Hitler, the yellow stars, and the terrible rumours of the concentration camps. Poole writes with a light touch, knowing that her audience is comprised of children who may be learning about the Holocaust for the first time, but doesn’t stint on the tragedy of Anne’s life (I mean, how could she?)

Published back in 2005, it contains chilling prescient with lines such as: “Huge crowds gathered around [Hitler]. They had no jobs, no hope. No wonder they cheered when he promised to make Germany rich and strong again!”

The least subtle composition in this book is also its most haunting: three girls stand with linked arms on the street. They are young, pretty, well-dressed – nothing that anyone could find offensive, and yet the yellow stars on their jackets demonstrate that these girls are, in fact, considered offensive. Behind them is a theatre, and you can see crowds of people gathered there; only one old man looks in their direction, disapproval on his face.

The poster of George Cuker's Romeo and Juliet tells us the year (1936) and the straight lines of the building, the tree and the street seem to frame the girls, box them in. One has her eyes downcast, the other two look straight at the reader. This is unusual for Barrett as she overwhelmingly paints her figures in profile, but here Anne looks straight ahead: sadness without self-pity, her hands holding the arm and waist of her two companions as if for comfort; protected but helplessly vulnerable. A wind blows through her hair.

It's the only image in the book in which the characters break the fourth wall, and it is so Anne can silently ask a question of the reader: is this fair? Do we deserve this? Would you help us? Could this happen again? It’s well outside Barrett’s usual wheelhouse, but for that reason it’s the most striking of the book’s illustrations.