Apparently Anne Frank is not welcome in Culpeper County Schools. In fact, this version of Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition,” has been banned from being taught in the classroom, based on the complaint of one parent. Culpeper County Public Schools, like most school systems, has a process by which books with complaints are screened and evaluated. The process was not followed in this case.
According to the Washington Post:
“The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition,” which was published on the 50th anniversary of Frank’s death in a concentration camp, will not be used in the future, said James Allen, director of instruction for the 7,600-student system. The school system did not follow its own policy for handling complaints about instructional materials, Allen said.
The diary documents the daily life of a Jewish girl in Amsterdam during World War II. Frank started writing on her 13th birthday, shortly before her family went into hiding in an annex of an office building. The version of the diary in question includes passages previously excluded from the widely read original edition, first published in Dutch in 1947. That book was arranged by her father, the only survivor in her immediate family. Some of the extra passages detail her emerging sexual desires; others include unflattering descriptions of her mother and other people living together.
Allen said that the more recent version will remain in the school library and that the earlier version will be used in classes. The 1955 play based on Frank’s experiences also has been a part of the eighth-grade curriculum for many years. The diary’s “universal theme, that there is good in everyone, resonates with these kids,” Allen said.
The Washington Post was able to outline the complaint process that normally takes place:
Culpeper’s policy on “public complaints about learning resources” calls for complaints to be submitted in writing and for a review committee to research the materials and deliberate, Allen said. In this case, the policy was not followed. Allen said the parent registered the complaint orally, no review committee was created and a decision was made quickly by at least one school administrator. He said he is uncertain about the details because he was out of town.
“The person came in, and the decision was made that day . . . and that’s fine. We would like to have had it in writing. It just did not happen,” Allen said.
Why would an administrator not follow county policy and make such a determination for the entire county? Why doesn’t the director of instruction immediately override the wimpy principals and put the book through the normal complaint process? The Diary of Anne Frank has been read by more people than any book other than the bible. according to some sources. It has been translated into many multiple languages. Very few complaints have been lodged against it.
In most cases, parents who are uncomfortable with teaching materials are allowed to remove their child from being taught the material in question or alternate materials are selected. Why would one parent be allowed to make learning decisions for everyone else’s child in the county. Culpeper County needs to re-evaluate this decision and follow its own rules.
I agree, Moon, that procedures were made to be followed to the extent prescribed. However, it looks to me like Culpeper County is still using the orginal 1947 version in the classroom and that it is the “Definitive Edition” which has been relegated to the library, where, presumably it will be available if desired. I know there can be all kinds of arguments about telling things as they were; but what does it profit us to throw controversy into something which has long been an inspiring treasure for mankind? It seems to me that we too often cannot leave well enough alone. Someone always wants to throw in the proverbial monkey wrench for whatever reason. We have enough contemporary controversies to go around twice over. Did we need to create another one? I think I can get along pretty well in my life without knowing the sexual thoughts of a young Ann Frank and her negative thoughts about her mother.
My only question before casting judgement is, in what grade is this being taught? If it is lower middle, then I would want to know more about the class. The subject matter and its message are extremely important, but the maturity level of the class, not just the age, would determine the wisdom of using the original version. Some kids are just not ready to discuss such sensitive subjects in a public setting. Our culture has created middle schoolers that are continually trying to grow up too fast. It should be our job to let their intellect develop at a healthy rate. One parent spoke up, but my guess is that if other parents read the material, they would raise the same concerns.
” The Diary of Anne Frank has been read by more people than any book other than the bible. according to some sources. ”
Has anyone read the Bible lately? Do you know that Song of Solomon talks about BREASTS? The parent who made a stink about this one probably lets his/her kid watch “South Park.”
These are the very real thoughts and feelings of a young girl, facing fear that no child should ever have to know, and still managing to have her growing pains in the process. It’s not gratuitous sex intended just to sell books. Unless they were making this available to very young children, who wouldn’t understand the context anyway, I’d say someone needs to get a life.
What Emma said! The things 8th graders text to each other today are far more blunt than any thoughts Anne Frank put on paper.
Emma is right. Anne Frank was living under conditions no other human being should have to live under, much less a 13 year old girl. She had the same thoughts any other 13 year old kid has. Plus she and the 7-8 others living in what was a 2 bedroom apartment were stepping on top of each other. She had little or no privacy.
Anne Frank has traditionally been taught in 8th grade, at least in Culpeper County.
Wolverine, Otto Frank published an ‘edited’ version of the diary in 1950. Things were very different then as far as what was mentioned in public. You didn’t see ads for underwear, feminine products, condoms and birth control in magazines, much less on tv. No one swore and couples didn’t even sleep in the same bed on TV. Times have changed, prhaps not for the good, but they have changed.
I suppose the decision was made to publish a more modern version on the 50th anniversary. I saw the movie version and it was excellent. It seemed more real to me. One kid’s parent should not be making the decision for everyone. At the very least, the book review process should have been used. Why wouldn’t a school go through their own county policy? That is where the criticism begins with me.
Cindy, Anne Frank probably didn’t know about half the average 8th grader knows about today. Texting, TV, facebook, IM all tell us that. I agree. The school should have followed county policy. They have made themselves the laughing stock of Virginia.
Good plan – if you want the students to really read the book – ban it.
That will arouse interest like nothing else – clever folks in Culpeper.
PR has it exactly right – a banned book will naturally attract people to it – and they’ll want to read it to see what salacious parts (for lack of a better phrase) there were in it that caused it to be banned.
Up to a point….As I understand the situation, it is a class study. The students all read it. I suppose they will just throw the trade books away now. What A waste of money.
I don’t like one parent having that much control over what everyone else’s kid gets to read. I found the revised book far more gripping than the original. Our sensibilities have changed since 1950 when the book was edited.
I fear the average 8th grader has a lot more salciousness going on in the halls of any middle school than Anne Frank did in a cramped apartment with 8 people.
I agree with Wolverine. For assigned reading, assign the abridged version.
Why, if it only bothers one parent? How about the fact that kids all over the US read this newer version and there have been like 10 complaints? Rick, it isn’t like you to defer to one person.
Why not at least go through the process and then make a decision?
It all depends on what you read. One place I read while researching the content for this thread said that there were only 10 bans on this book which was published in 1995. The original Anne Frank was published in 1947, in Dutch)
Now I read in the Culpeper Star Exponet:
According to Amazon.com, “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” tops the list of commonly banned children’s books in public schools nationwide.
I simply don’t believe that statement. It was allowed in public school when I was a kid. They didn’t allow anything back then.
ALA List of 100 banned books:
I read many of them in high school. Of course my last 2 years were in private school. Perhaps that is the difference. We were given a list of suggested books. The real controversial ones were on that list.
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics/reasonsbanned/index.cfm
Because the abridged portions aren’t relevant to anything. So, let them be abridged. There was some intimation that the teacher wasn’t really familiar with the difference in contents between versions. I think this is a tempest in a teapot.
My kids periodically have been assigned to watch the evening news, where there are commercials dealing with ED and female lubrication issues. The news itself is loaded with graphic violence, and my kids are now aware that John Edwards made a sex tape. And being the apparently raunchy parent that I am, I allowed them all to read “Catcher in the Rye,” which also had its banning issues through the years. If one lone parent tried to dictate what my kids should or should not be reading in the classroom, I’m pretty sure we would rebel and buy our kids the unabridged version. What on earth harm could the musings of an innocent 13-year-old historical character do, compared with the trash that they see on TV, online, and among each other in school every day?
Who are any of us to decide what is relevant in Anne Frank’s diary? She is the only one who could have told us that. It obviously was important enough to her since she wrote it down…Many think this work is important because it is a first hand account of what is was like for Jews in hiding from the Nazis. I would agree, however we have to remember that this is a record of a life. The details, tangents, and complications are a part of its beauty. The now included portions, though I haven’t read them, seem to have the potential to make the story even more relatable to preteens/teens who read it. I am curious as to the exact passages which were objectionable to the complainant…
They are Anne Frank’s thoughts. She had everything of her existence taken away. Now the thought police want to take her anger at her mother away (and what 13-15 year old girl hasn’t had mother problems) and her emerging sexuality? It isn’t something made up. It is from her diaries. The orginal play got zapped because it was too Jewish. Next are we going to make her a little Christian girl with blonde pigtails who just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time?
This debate is apparently going along gender lines. You men should know that when I totally agree with every word out of Emma’s mouth that you have trouble on your hands. 😉
Here is a link I found interesting on teaching about Anne Frank:
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/holocaust/Research/AnneFrank/AnneF20pFinalHM.htm
It talks about some pros and cons of teaching Anne Frank in the classroom. None of the cons have anything to do with sex. It is more like the atrocities of the Nazis are sanitized and things like that.
Hi DG, I have been trying to find them. I even called my middle school English teacher friend who I know teaches it. I think there is some confusion over the name of the various books.
Check out the link in the above comment. Part of that essay deals with the fact that the book and play were ‘sanitized’ and rewritten because Anne seemed too Jewish and they (not sure who ‘they’ is ) wanted the story more for a general audience. How freaking offensive is that to us nowadays. I don’t think Anne Frank was translated into English unto 1950. General audiences? 🙄
from: The Resource Sheet
That’s quite a different story from what we saw quoted in the Star Exponent.
I refuse to believe that more people complained over Anne Frank than Catcher in the Rye or Lady Chatterly’s Lover. (which I do not think appropriate for required reading in high school–too controversial)
There’s what should be available in the world for people to read, and there’s what we FORCE kids to read in schools. Two different categories of things. I don’t think anyone said that the unabridged version shouldn’t be available to interested kids.
Somehow I doubt that the full version of Anne Frank is in any way responsible for the recent uptick in teen pregnancies. If you sanitize history, make it all shiny and clean-minded, children won’t ever be horrified by it, will they? Then the Holocaust will mean no more than Hogan’s Heroes.
In my personal opinion, the “Diary of Anne Frank” issued in 1947 was one of the great lessons of history when the world really needed that lesson. Do we not sidetrack a bit from that lesson when we add the “prurient” aspects to the story? Already we have a great work of art involved in controversy in Culpeper and on this blog. All of a sudden the whole issue of Anne Frank turns into an argument when it ought to be a uniter and an exemplifier of peace and justice.
I totally agree with Moon that any school system has to follow the established procedures to the max when facing this kind of issue. As for you and I or anyone else with an academic interest in learning more about the mindset on that young girl, we can read this work and inform ourselves. Why can we not leave the younger ones out of it until they reach a better age of reason? Emma and others are right: we do introduce our kids to all kinds of things that were never seen in previous eras. Does that make us right? Are we not complicit as a society in stealing the innocence of our children when perhaps we ought to back off and think a bit about what we are doing. What’s next? A re-make of “Snow White” showing her and the Prince having sex? But now we have a “banned” book. We are right when opining that this will cause in itself a “run” to check the banned book. So, now instead of focusing on the real lesson of Anne Frank, we will have kids thumbing through the pages just to catch a few sentences on her youthful sexual desires.
I think it had been banned before that, Wolverine, in other areas. I have put a few links here. I fault the one person and the school system for not following policy. Many people who challenge books have gone through an organization that tells parents to challenge books.
Most 8th graders are quite wise to the world, I am sorry to say. I doubt if any of them are going to see anything in Anne Frank they haven’t seen before.
Snow White having sex with the prince. All along I had thought that was with the 7 dwarfs. TMI!!!!
Wolverine, the “real” lesson of Anne Frank? Couldn’t there be many? Reducing her life and her diary to one “real” message makes a one-dimensional figure out of a real-life person.
There’s just no point to making schoolkids read Anne Frank’s thoughts on her vagina. A shorter version will do just fine.
And good grief, it’s a girl’s diary in the first place.
Leave it to Rick to bring about the real show stopper there.
Are you going to tell me that 8th graders don’t think about vaginas practically non-stop?
Good grief, are we now going to hide the fact that 13-year-old’s have vaginas?
Maybe I should start protesting Family Life Education. I didn’t realize until today how much filth my kids are potentially getting exposed to there.
Anne Frank didn’t write her diary to teach one unified “lesson.” The book is a portrait of a very real and multidimensional young girl. And apparently only one parent has a problem with it. I’m surprised, Rick, that you feel that the demands of a TINY minority should dictate for everyone.
I’m seeing a little irony here.
The ultimate lesson of that diary was “Never Again.” That may not have been Anne’s intention, but that is the way it turned out. And, as time passes, it will become harder and harder to focus subsequent generations on that lesson. I just hate to see it diluted by extraneous controversy.
I think perhaps the thinking in banning children from reading anything about sex in text books is that this would give a stamp of normalcy and even official recognition that sex is part of life.
I know it’s true kids are already thinking and texting things that would make us all blush, but an official stamp of approval, the thinking goes, would remove some of the shame, self-doubt, and self-loathing that they think is a good deterrent for all things sexual.
It’s “The Diary of Anne Frank,” not the Kama Sutra. Sheesh.
Boy, times have changed. I can’t remember being absolutely obsessed in the eight grade by vaginas. Mostly I was pissed off because I was having trouble hitting a curve ball. And that danged math made my life miserable. And then there was the obligatory six-month visit to the dentist — who didn’t believe in novacain. But, then, we didn’t have the internet where, in just a few key strokes and a blink or two of the eye, you can go from anti-bvbl to Hustler Magazine.
I just heard on the radio that Culpeper County has decided to address the Anne Frank issue according to standard procedure as prescribed by county rules. Stand by for a decision later in the year. Moon-howler, they must be reading you out there!
You can not ony get to Hustler, you can casually browse bestiality pics and various fetishes … I believe today’s kids do have and will have a very different, demystified information-age view of sex. Whether this will be good or bad, I don’t know.
“Anne Frank didn’t write her diary to teach one unified “lesson.” The book is a portrait of a very real and multidimensional young girl. ”
Not an arguement to force kids to read the longer version, unless we’re studying adolescent psychology.
“And apparently only one parent has a problem with it.”
Whether it was one or a thousand, I agree that it’s just as well to stay with the abridged version for required reading. Again, I’m not suggesting that we suppress the longer version or eliminate it from school libraries.
“I’m surprised, Rick, that you feel that the demands of a TINY minority should dictate for everyone. ”
I don’t. That’s not my thinking.
I don’t care for example one whit who opposes teaching “evolution” in schools. It needs to be taught. It’s a critical learning point that things evolve and are not static.
Why should we be reading about Anne Frank’s vagina? What is the point?
Should every memoir we put in kids’ hands be necessarily unabridged?
Should we perhaps also explore homoerotoc roots in Naziism and in genocide by screening Visconti’s “The Damned”?
Should we watch documentaries on female circumcision to bring women’s rights issues to the forefront?
Should we assign “Push” in schools as required reading?
If we talk about the 1990’s, should we assign the Starr Report as reading?
I have a real problem with anyone picking out asisgned reading in the first place. It’s important that they read and that they be exposed to diversity of thought.
“Why should we be reading about Anne Frank’s vagina? What is the point?”
I haven’t read the book in years. Does she really talk about that, or are we simply speculating (no pun intended).
“Should every memoir we put in kids’ hands be necessarily unabridged?”
Memoirs should be age-appropriate, and Anne Frank’s is for eighth graders. They should also be honest.
“Should we perhaps also explore homoerotoc roots in Naziism and in genocide by screening Visconti’s “The Damned”?”
“The Damned” is a work of historical fiction, very loosely based on an actual family with a lot of poetic license taken. That means gratuitous content. Anne Frank’s diary is a real person’s account of her life during a horrible time in history.
“Should we watch documentaries on female circumcision to bring women’s rights issues to the forefront?”
Are our children in danger of practicing female circumcision if they don’t learn about it in school? Highly unlikely. The point here is historical relevance and context.
“Should we assign “Push” in schools as required reading?”
“Push” is yet another work of historical fiction that uses clairvoyance and magic to advance the plot. It’s a make-believe world.
“If we talk about the 1990’s, should we assign the Starr Report as reading?”
Might be a little too in-depth for eighth graders to completely understand. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky are adults who were involved in adult situations. Anne Frank was a 13-year-old girl that many middle schoolers relate to easily.
How can you teach a coherent class if every student reads whatever they feel like reading all the time? How can you have any meaningful discussion?
Emma, the not-before published pages include her talking about what her vagina is like, and about her parents’ loveless relationship, as I understand it. Haven’t read them myself.
We are as likely to have an outburst of female circumcision as to practice genocide, IMO.
“How can you teach a coherent class if every student reads whatever they feel like reading all the time?”
Well, it depends on the class. I assume only in a class on reading would they assign something long.
Now, on another subject, in case anyone thinks that you can’t do a good comedy sketch that involves Anne Frank, here’s one from “Mr. Show”, the greatest of the sketch comedy shows – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-NiRgwqkN0
Let’s not speculate on what she said about her vagina. I have tried to find it and I can’t. One reference and she uses the right terminology. If I am not mistaken, she gets her first period when living in the annex, at least that is what happened in the movie.
I will find it though, even if I have to buy it and read the book.
So far, Emma is dead on!
Which movie? The black-and-white one from the 1950’s? I see that on TCM from time to time, that is a very eerie film.
The 30% more content seems extraneous to me. Particularly in that she talks about wanting to touch another girl and kiss her. It seems to me that speculating on Anne Frank’s sexuality and reading her thought on vaginas and sex education just isn’t a particularly worthwhile endeavor for 8th graders.
Here’s the backstory – from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4208/is_19950304/ai_n10187618/
Anne actually wrote two versions of her diary.
Impressed by a 1944 radio speech from London asking for eyewitness accounts of the suffering of the Dutch people, Anne began rewriting and editing the diary. She wanted to improve on the text, omit uninteresting passages and add others from memory.
At the same time, she kept up the original diary.
The first, unedited version is known as version A, the second as version B.
When Otto Frank decided to publish the diary, he took material from both A and B, editing them into a shorter C version, which has become known to millions of readers as “The Diary of a Young Girl.”
Frank kept the book short to meet the demands of his publisher. He also omitted several passages dealing with Anne’s sexuality because sex was not considered an appropriate topic in 1947. And, out of respect for the dead, he left out some unflattering passages about his wife and other residents of the annex.
Rick, how do you feel about kids reading “A Catcher in the Rye,” then–full of vulgar language, sexual references and drinking? Osbourn High School has no problem assigning that book, and all of my kids have read it and written on it. Didn’t John Lennon’s murderer cite that book as an inspiration?
I never read it. I think Chapman’s biggest inspiration was his interpretation of Christianity. Having read a few Salinger obits in recent days, I think I get the gist of the book.
I’m surprised so many kids are being assigned so many books to read. They made me read a little Dickens, and that was it. I asked my wife what she read – growing up in DC I figured her experience might be different from mine growing up in the Midwest – they made her read a little Dickens too.
So, my feeling on being assigned any particular book is that I’m curious about the context, what class it is. Why should they read Catcher in the Rye? Probably my real feeling on this is that it’s as meaningless to those kids as Dickens was to me – a book that was important to older generations being foisted onto young ones. It might resonate with a few kids but for most it’s probably painful and pointless.
IMO, from a distance, the original version of Anne Frank’s writings seems a better version to circulate to a general audience. If they are using the shorter version instead, I see no issue here.
I’m not a big believer anymore in reading fiction. Fiction’s just as well expressed in movies and TV. Let them read factual books which are engrossing. Like the Diary of Anne Frank I suppose, but the short version’s probably as well as the long version.
Lots of good debate here. Emma, I am with you. Watch freakin’ MTV and you will see more sexual explicit language and grinding than any Anne Frank diary. Maybe people are uncomfortable because it’s too real. The fake oversexed B.S. kids see on T.V. and commercials are O.K., but hey, slow down when it comes to real life feelings about sexuality. Anne Frank was denied her G-d given right to be a woman and all that it entails. It is disgusting that people would denegrate the denial of her experiences as a human being, and yes, to the puritans, SEX is a part of that human experience, to something inappropriate. She died, alone, in physcial and emotional pain, pain you and I will NEVER experience, and ALL her feelings matter. All that COULD have and SHOULD have been, but denied her because of the Holocaust, ARE the most important parts of the diary in my opinion. Sorry, a little emotional here I guess.
Right on the money, Elena. Impossible to equate the awakening sexuality of a very real 13-year-old with pop-fiction trash.
Rick, my kids loved “Catcher in the Rye.” There is a whole world of fiction out there that was introduced to them in high school that they have since embraced as adults as some of their favorite books. Wonderful Manassas City teachers certainly did their part to foster that love of good fiction. What would my graduate student’s life be like if she were not introduced to “The Aenid” by our wonderful Latin teachers there? One of my kids loves and appreciates all six Jane Austen novels, just as I do. We both get the Romantic-era humor and have our own little jokes that we share as a sort of social commentary. So I am a big believer that fiction has an important place in education.
It just has to be age-appropriate. I was assigned “The Scarlet Letter” in 7th grade. I had to reread it in adulthood to understand what Hester Prynne had actually done that was so wrong.
I should add: “What Hester Prynne had actually done that was SUPPOSEDLY so wrong.” Her husband was presumed lost at sea, and came back to live incognito, so she got involved with someone else. How was she supposed to know?
Age approprietness is important. I had some required reading to do in high school that was just not age appropriate, not because of sex or violence but because I was not emotionally maturity to really grasp. I can’t think of an example, just that it happened. On the other hand, I got exposed to some fiction I would have never read otherwise.
Most people seem to remember the stuff they read in high school.
I have seen both Anne Frank films. I have seen the original and the more recent one that is based on the book in discussion now. This latest film took what was know of Anne Frank after she left Amsterdam, based on accounts of eye witnesses. It was far more moving that the original film. The first film seemed very cleaned up and sanitized (yes that word keeps popping up in my mind). The dread and horror of the holocaust just seemed missing in the first film. The second film hits you right between the eyes.
If the kids enjoy the reading, that’s great, because I assume the important thing is not the ideas in the books – they’ll be inundated with all kinds of ideas and perspectives, as we all are, from TV and movies – but cultivating and sharpening reading skills.
But the importance of reading about Anne Frank’s emerging sexuality, I don’t get. If someone feels in Culpepper its worth fighting about, then let the process go forward by all means.
I’m not opposed to 8th graders having the option to read about a young girl’s emerging (bi) sexuality, but I don’t see why it should be on their desks as required reading, UNLESS the topic for discussion is teenaged sexuality.
Moon-howler, I’ve only seen the first film, but I thought it was pretty impressive actually. Very creepy and claustrophibic.
I have strong opinions on film. And about Holocaust-related films. “Schindler’s List” I find clumsy, overhyped, and vulgar. “The Pianist” by that little pervert Polanski I find tremendously effective, as good a film as you’ll ever see. “Defiance” as I’ve mentioned here before I thought was excellent.
No one here sees the comedy in a classroom full of schoolchildren and a teacher potentially asking them questions like “What does it mean when Anne says she wants to touch the other girl’s tits?” or “Do you think Anne would have been atracted to women if there had been other men in the attic?” or “Did Anne write about sex so much because the framped living quarters did not give her a chance for masturbation?”?