Light in the Forest third post

In the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book, Conrad Richter says this:

“Already two hundred years ago . . . our ideals and restrained manner of existence repelled the Indian. I felt that if we understood how these First Americans felt toward us even then and toward our white way of life, we might better understand the adverse, if perverted, view of us by some African, European, and Asian peoples today.”

What is Richter trying to tell us, in this passage and in the rest of the book, about how people perceive one another? What is important about how we perceive one another? How does this problem affect the characters in the book?

Anne Frank Third Post

Now that you are finished with the book, I’m wondering what you thought about the experience of reading the book. While we were in the library today, I noticed that several of you were reading some background material about Anne Frank and looking at pictures of the Secret Annex. Several of you were surprised to find out that the names of most of the people she wrote about had been changed to protect their identities, and others of you were shocked at how small the Secret Annex was.

Think about this question: for you, what was the best part of this book? What was the worst part? I’m not asking about how you read the book (in other words, I don’t want you to write that the worst part was that it was hard to read and you didn’t have enough time to read it); I’m asking about the effect that the content had on you. For instance, you might say that the worst part was the descriptions of the air raids because they really scared you and you could imagine how scared Anne would be during the raids.

Additionally, let’s answer Kevin’s question: why do you think that this book has lasted when other diaries have not? What do you think was special about this book?