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APRIL 13, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
A public high school in Florida has
removed an illustrated adaptation of
Anne Frank’s diary from its library. It is the
second known instance of this particular
edition of the famous Holocaust book
being swept up by conservatives
seeking to purge schools of literature
they deem inappropriate.

The principal’s office of Vero Beach
High School, which is located in a
community on Florida’s east coast,
recently decided to remove “Anne
Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation”
from its school library, according to
Cristen Maddux, a spokesperson for
the Indian River County school district.

Maddux said the book was determined
to be “not age appropriate.”
Last year, a school district in Texas
ordered its librarians to remove the
same book before reversing course a
week later following public outcry. Other
books about the Holocaust recently
removed by public schools include Art
Spiegelman’s “Maus,” which a Tennessee
district pulled from its middle school
curriculum last year, and Jodi Picoult’s
“The Storyteller,” which was removed
from another Florida district last month
following a parental challenge.

The removal at Vero Beach High
School was spurred by at least one
challenge from a parent in the district
affiliated with the conservative activist
group Moms For Liberty, according
to the Treasure Coast News, a local
publication. In the challenge, the parent
had reportedly written that the book was
“not a true adaptation of the Holocaust.”
The district backed up that sentiment,
Maddux said. “That’s not the actual diary
of Anne Frank,” she said. “It’s a fictional
novel that has some inappropriate
content in it.” Maddux added that the
book “was removed due to minimization
of the Holocaust,” and said, “Library
spaces in the district currently have
factual accounts of The Diary of Anne
Frank.” Maddux said that she herself had not
read the book and did not immediately
know what the “inappropriate content”
in question was.

In a statement about various
challenges to the graphic adaptation,
the Anne Frank Fonds, the Switzerland-
based foundation that controls the
copyright to her diary, said it was
“generally concerned that ignorance
about the Shoah, relativization or denial
of history are on the rise, especially in
the United States.”
The foundation also defended the
inclusion of Frank’s original writing by
saying, “We consider the book of a
12-year-old girl to be appropriate reading
for her peers.”
The graphic novel adaptation of the
diary was released in 2018 with the
full authorization of the Anne Frank
Fonds. Adapted by Israeli filmmaker Ari
Folman and illustrator David Polonsky
and intended for young readers, the
book compresses Frank’s actual diary
entries into a condensed version of her
true story. While it does contain some
invented dialogue and surrealist scenes,
reproductions of Frank’s actual diary in
the book hew to her exact words.

The graphic novel has attracted some
scrutiny for reproducing passages of
Frank’s diary that had been edited out of
its original publication in 1947. (The diary
was first published in English in 1952.)
— Andrew Lapin | JTA
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Florida High
School Pulls
Graphic Novel
Adaptation of
Anne Frank’s Diary