Behind the Bookcase

Miep Gies, Anne Frank, and the Hiding Place

By: Barbara Lowell

Narrated by: Book Buddy Digital Media

Anne Frank’s diary is a gift to the world because of Miep Gies. One of the protectors of the Frank family, Miep recovered the diary after the family was discovered by Nazis, and then returned it to Otto Frank after World War II. Displaced from her own home as a child during World War I, Miep had great empathy for Anne, and she found ways - like talking about Hollywood gossip and fashion trends - to engage her. The story of their relationship - and the impending danger to the family in hiding - unfolds in this unique perspective of Anne Frank’s widely known story.

©2020 Barbara Lowell (P)2020 Lerner Digital

Critic reviews

"Sometimes history is chronicled in years. Sometimes it’s chronicled in minutes. Almost anyone who has been to Hebrew school and many who haven’t know the basic facts of Anne Frank’s life: Her family hid for two years in a tiny annex. The Nazis found them, in spite of all their secrecy. Anne left a diary that ensured generations of readers would never forget the lives lost in the Holocaust. This new biography mentions each of those facts, but it focuses on smaller moments: Anne’s learning to walk, and then sashay, in high heels. Anne’s decorating the walls, comically, with pictures of chimpanzees. The book focuses in particular on Miep Gies, the gentile woman who helped them and then found the diary, and some of the details about her childhood are startling. An Austrian refugee, she was taken in during World War I by Dutch strangers who then raised her. (Gies and all of the historical figures depicted have pale skin.) The focus on details is both the book’s value and its chief flaw. It describes the moment-to-moment experience of life in an attic. Some of those moments are deeply moving, but some are mundane, a catalogs of pots and pans and dirty clothes. Readers may find the book a bit less heartbreaking then others on Frank because the larger history is so familiar. The main facts have been told many times in many books. Toro’s illustrations, however, make every scene haunting, with dark shadows on the Franks’ faces, as though they’re covered with ash. The story’s familiarity takes away only some of its power and its urgency." (Kirkus Reviews)

"This thoughtful new picture book recounts the main points of Anne Frank's life in hiding: where she hid, with whom, who helped them, how they were caught, and the later discovery and publication of her diary. Lowell stays true to the historical tragedy but also allows sensitive readers some distance by telling the story largely through the point of view of Miep Gies—a German Dutch employee of Anne's father, who helped hide the family—including several pages about Miep's own childhood. The main text also takes a gentle and indirect, but still clear, approach to Anne's death: 'Of all the people in the hiding place, only Mr. Frank returned from the concentration camps.' (For readers with questions, the author's note at the end provides more detail.) Similarly, Toro's soft, not-too-realistic illustrations focus on people and relationships, evoking emotions more than traumatic events. Even after the Franks are captured, illustrations of scattered possessions suggest rather than show violence. A historically accurate but relatively gentle introduction to the Holocaust for elementary-age readers." (Miriam Aronin, Booklist)