PROPER NOUNS - Advanced

'KITTY'

Life ended for a little before her sixteenth birthday. She died in , 1945, seven months after the last entry in her beloved diary. The almost human she had been given two years before, on her thirteenth birthday, and to whom she had confided for those two years all the thoughts she had been unable to share with another human being. ''I hope', she wrote in , as her first entry in the book, 'I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do with anyone before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.' The previous day, 12th ,1942, had been her thirteenth birthday, and among the presents waiting for her in the lounge room of the family's comfortable house in ,among the sweets and flowers, was the stiff-covered little book in which she was to keep a diary. She had never kept one before: the prospect was thrilling. At 13, the thoughtful child needs friendship, a sympathetic ear into which to pour their thoughts without a returning flood of warnings and advice from parents or grown-up friends. For this friend was . has been beautifully translated from the language. And yet, little herself, who spent much of her two years in hiding studying and , who could read and enjoy , thrill to the voice of on the radio, could probably have put her journal into English no less appealing.