It’s the Year of the Book, or the YOB.

That’s the name of my project to read 20 books this year, and has a nice connotation of reading being my job with a soft j.

The effort is off to a fine start, with the first book being completed on January 6th.

First off the bookshelf was “Zlata’s Diary.” It’s the first book I’ve ever read that had the word’s “International Bestseller” on the front. The author has been described as an Anne Frank of a new generation. She noted that comparison while still writing the diary, but was dismayed by the connection. Instead she hoped there was a better ending to her situation: “[I hope] I will not suffer the same fate as Anne Frank. That I will be a child again, living my childhood in peace.”

She began writing just before her 11th birthday in Sarajevo. It was just before the term “war-torn Sarajevo” came into wide use. Even if you know nothing about the Balkan conflict, you can understand the human side of tragic events. Zlata is an optimistic young girl who talks about such very normal things that in some of the entries you forget she lives in a war zone. It’s a place where her family has to rush into a cellar for safety. A place where people run across the bridge down the street from her apartment so they are less likely to be shot by the sniper in the hills above. Yet she retains her humor–even giving a nickname to the sniper.

Talking about one of the many extended power outages (some that lasted months), she describes a scene where her family takes all the food from their freezer and cooks it before it all goes bad. After stuffing themselves she says they “had a MEAT stroke.” That’s great comedy coming from a terrible situation.

She talks about the United Nations and a pledge to make sure the events of the 1930s and 40s aren’t repeated. But as the shells rain down on her city, and radio reports of ethnic cleansing come from all corners of her country, she knows that pledge has failed. This is one of those books where unfortunately, though that specific conflict was eventually resolved, the basic story exists somewhere else. We can make connections to sectarian violence in Iraq, ethnic strife in Rwanda, and even more current class struggles in Kenya.

I know too well that on the news we can sometimes portray these conflicts in a way that can dehumanize them. They become about big, easier-to-explain reasons rather than some of the more-nuanced, underlying causes. We don’t hear from the young man in Kenya who explains how his town exploded into violence after an election. We don’t hear how it wasn’t just someone pushing the “riot” button, but instead a slower slip into moments of chaos that have been building his entire life.

I came across the book through another. I was reading “The Freedom Writers’ Diary,” which is an amazing compilation of entries from high school students dealing with way more than tomorrow’s math test. This was one of the texts their class read as a way to examine their own issues. It was a way to break through the idea of “you wouldn’t understand, you don’t know what I’m going through.” It’s an attitude that can shut out so may ideas when you feel like nobody has it as bad as you. But then you have your eyes and your mind opened to a host of other strife that can put your situation in perspective. Someone was shot in your city today. Ok. Were 2,000 people slaughtered as they tried to get bread? Have you been without power, water, or even the chance to go to school for months? Was your friend and her family blown up in a park across the street from your house for no reason?

You read in “The Freedom Writers’ Diary” how the students’ views of even their writing changes as the book goes on. It starts with a reluctance to open their worlds, and ends with them being elated to be able to meet Zlata. And her diary is no different. She begins with the happy entries of a young girl who loves going to school and describes all of the wonderful activities that are packing her days. As the war begins, she is nothing but optimistic. It will be over soon. “The kids,” as she calls politicians, will figure it out. She hits rock bottom, using sentences in full caps and exclamation points to decry the “BOREDOM!!! SHOOTING!!! SHELLING!!! PEOPLE BEING KILLED!!! DESPAIR!!! HUNGER!!! MISERY!!! FEAR!!!”

Is that what you were thinking about at age 12?

“Zlata’s Diary” by Zlata Filipovic.