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ANNE ELIZABETH’S DIARY by Anne Elizabeth Rector Kirkus Star

ANNE ELIZABETH’S DIARY

A Young Artist’s True Story

by Anne Elizabeth Rector & illustrated by Anne Elizabeth Rector

Pub Date: July 1st, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-07204-4
Publisher: Little, Brown

A marvelous confluence of text and image, history and research, family and locale makes this a deeply appealing title. For Christmas, 12-year-old Anne Elizabeth Rector got a diary from her mother and art supplies from her father, and she kept an illustrated diary the whole year of 1912. Her entries are brief but almost always illustrated: teachers’ hats, friends’ shoes, faces, flowers. It’s clear that she misses her father, a photographer who travels a lot, and has issues with her mother, a seamstress who gets sick headaches often. Drawing and painting are her passion, even though her family and friends cannot understand her desire. Krull creates sidebars illuminating the plays Anne Elizabeth sees, the dinners she eats, the social and cultural milieu of New York City. Notes from Krull on keeping a diary, from Anne Elizabeth’s granddaughter, and a summary of the rest of her life (she did become an artist, and she did make a living at it) are a bonus. (notes, index) (Nonfiction. 9-14)