School bans version of Anne Frank's diary after moms call it 'sexually explicit'
A school in Florida has banned an adaptation of Anne Frank's diary after a parents' group complained about it containing 'sexually explicit' content.
According to local news outlet WPTV, the library at Vero Beach High School will no longer contain Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation.
It is a graphic novel version of the iconic diary which recorded the experiences of Anne Frank and her family as they hid from the Nazis.
The book was taken from the school library when a group called Moms for Liberty claimed they had concerns about the book.
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Moms for Liberty is a non-profit group which claims to advocate for 'parental rights', with Media Matters saying it benefits from right-wing funding and ties to the Republican party.
Last year schools in Florida banned 54 math textbooks from their curriculum over claims that they attempted to 'indoctrinate' students.
Jennifer Pippin, chair of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for Liberty, thought that 'true history absolutely needs to be taught' and that includes Anne Frank's diary, but said the group had concerns over some of the content in the book.
Pippin said Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation contains a 'graphic scene' where Frank asks a friend to expose themselves to one another and argues that in other parts of the book there are graphic illustrations of nude statues.
After Moms for Liberty made their complaints the Vero Beach High School said they found that some parts of the book didn't 'contribute to the themes of Holocaust education'.
Pippin said that there were around 250 other titles which the group planned to challenge in the future.
Dr. Kyra Schafte, director of academic compliance and equity for the district, said that students could still read copies of the original Diary of Anne Frank in the school library.
She said: "When districts address Holocaust education, it does so without denying or minimizing the events of Holocaust education.
"In these times, the content did not promote behaviors we would want our students to have access to."
Anne Frank herself wrote two versions of her world-famous diary, as from 20 May 1944 onwards she rewrote significant parts of it as she planned to publish a book about her time in hiding.
Among the parts she rewrote or left out of her revised version were some passages where she wrote about sex and sexuality, with most of them ending up left out.
When the diary was published some of the elements she dropped during rewriting were put back in by her father Otto Frank.
The book people know is a compilation of Anne Frank's original diary, her rewritten diary and some of her short stories.
Joe Harker