23 February Results rolling in! Algebra, 6th = 74%. Not bad. Latin = 55% Thrilled! History top = 85% smashing! Geography, disgusting, 2nd = 67%. In 1954 in Carlisle lived an ordinary 15-year-old schoolgirl called Margaret. She would go on to become an acclaimed writer, the author of the novels Georgy Girl and Diary of an Ordinary Woman as well as biographies and memoirs. But this is her diary from that year; her life. Hers might be a lost world, but her daily observations bring it back in vivid, irresistible detail. 7 May Wonderful feat accomplished yesterday by Roger Bannister! At last, the 4 minute mile. Glad an Englishman got it before anyone else. 24 July Bought a pair of shorts – white, very short with two pockets. Super but rather daring! 2 September Mum’s coming back on Saturday. Miss her every minute! I'll never marry and have a family -- housekeeping for two for a week is bad enough -- but for life!

“Heartbreakingly inspirational.” (AsianWeek) Ma Yan's heart-wrenching, honest diary chronicles her struggle to escape hardship through her persistent, sometimes desperate, attempts to continue her schooling. In a drought-stricken corner of rural China, an education can be the difference between a life of crushing poverty and the chance for a better future. But for Ma Yan, money is scarce, and the low wages paid for backbreaking work aren't always enough to pay school fees, or even to provide enough food for herself and her family. The publication of The Diary of Ma Yan was an international sensation, creating an outpouring of support for this courageous teenager and others like her . . . all due to one ordinary girl's extraordinary diary. "You don't review this small book; you tell people about it and say, 'Read it.'" (Washington Post)

Traces the life of a young Jewish girl who kept a diary during the two years she and her family hid from the Germans in an Amsterdam attic.

On the eve of the Great War, Millicent King begins to keep her journal and records the dramas of everyday life in a family touched by war, tragedy, and money troubles. This title presents the 'edited' diary of this woman, born in 1901, whose life spans the twentieth century.

Recently unearthed in the archives of Stalin's secret police, the NKVD, Nina Lugovskaya's diary offers rare insight into the life of a teenage girl in Stalin's Russia-when fear of arrest was a fact of daily life. Like Anne Frank, thirteen-year-old Nina is conscious of the extraordinary dangers around her and her family, yet she is preoccupied by ordinary teenage concerns: boys, parties, her appearance, who she wants to be when she grows up. As Nina records her most personal emotions and observations, herreflections shape a diary that is as much a portrait of her intense inner world as it is the Soviet outer one. Preserved here, these markings-the evidence used to convict Nina as a "counterrevolutionary"- offer today's reader a fascinating perspective on the era in which she lived.

"Recently unearthed in the archives of the NKVD, Nina Lugovskaya's diary provides a rare window into the life of a Moscow family during the 1930s when fear of arrest was a fact of life. Like Anne Frank, 13-year-old Nina Lugovskaya is conscious of the extraordinary dangers all around her yet preoccupied by adolescent concerns. The diary ends two days before the NKVD conducted a thorough search of her family's apartment. Nina's diary was seized and carefully studied, the "incriminating" passages were underlined (these markings have been preserved in the book) and used to convict her as a "counterrevolutionary" who was "preparing to kill Stalin." She was sentenced to five years of hard labor and subsequent internal exile. This plainspoken diary is an unprecedented document of Soviet totalitarian rule."--BOOK JACKET.

In May 1941 Lena Mukhina was an ordinary teenage girl, living in Leningrad, worrying about her homework and whether Vova - the boy she liked - liked her. Like a good Soviet schoolgirl, she was also diligently learning German, the language of Russia's Nazi ally. And she was keeping a diary, in which she recorded her hopes and dreams. Then, on 22 June 1941, Hitler broke his pact with Stalin and declared war on the Soviet Union. All too soon, Leningrad was besieged and life became a living hell. Lena and her family fought to stay alive; their city was starving and its citizens were dying in their hundreds of thousands. From day to dreadful day, Lena records her experiences: the desperate hunt for food, the bitter cold of the Russian winter and the cruel deaths of those she loved. A truly remarkable account of this most terrible era in modern history, The Diary of Lena Mukhina is the vivid first-hand testimony of a courageous young woman struggling simply to survive.