The Eighth Amendment and a Book Review

Just randomly thought of this...the Eighth Amendment dictates that "no cruel or unusual punishments be inflicted," but how do you determine whether a punishment is cruel or unusual? Also, since child labor is banned, where do you draw the line between typical house chores and child labor? And another thing I find odd, often people (including me) say things like "that's weird" or "you're annoying," but how do you determine whether something is weird or not? It's not like there's a book that lists everything that's weird (at least, I don't think there is)

  And now for the book review.....Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank XP. I'm not sure if I should rate this book out of five stars or out of ten or anything, seeing as this is a diary and it's not as though you can grade a teenager's diary in terms of well-developed plot and stuff. In general I'm bad at reviewing books because a) I like almost every book I read and b) when I like books, I can't think of anything to say except "it was good," "interesting," etc. But I don't have any other idea for a post, so here goes:

This book is kind of a downer. It's sad; makes you wonder why people were so cruel. But at the same time it's sad, it sort of makes you happier. (Well, it made me happier). By reading how Anne suffered, how she ate nothing but rotten potatoes and half-cooked spinach for months on end, how she had to tiptoe around all day, how she had to grow up without any friends to grow up with, you kind of realize how lucky you are. Because chances are, you don't have to walk around with a big star branded on your skin, you have more variety to eat than rotten vegetables, and most importantly you live freely. You don't have to live cramped in a secret attic of an office building with seven other people that you don't even really like, be in constant, horrible fear that cruel soldiers will send you to do endless labor or be gassed to death. (At least, I don't have to. I hope you don't). And through her diary, well, it's sort of like another history textbook. A primary source, I think the proper term is. (Although it was translated by someone else so whether it still counts as a primary source I don't know). She illustrates the daily life of a Jewish person living in the early 1940's, and a Jew evading persecution at that. Anne was extremely brave, all throughout those 25 months of hiding. She was about my age when she was first forced to go into hiding, and I tell you, if someone came to me right now and said that I had to go hide away in an attic with a stranger family for two years and eat rotten vegetables, I wouldn't be nearly so spirited as Anne, I wouldn't show the sort of happiness and hope that Anne emanated in her diary entries. I would totally freak out. Anne does a great job of explaining her daily life in her hiding place, how the people around her act, how she feels, and she even writes about the politics and radio broadcasts. Some of her entries even seem like stories you'd read in a novel today--burglaries, falling in love, finding her place in the world. This book is highly recommended.

Well, that was a lame ending to my review, but I figure a book review doesn't have to have a good closing that clears up all the holes in the plot and all that.

--Audrey