Why The Diary Of Anne Frank Should Not Be Banned

When it comes to some parents or parental guardians, they get picky about what their children are exposed to. And when they see something and think it is something their child shouldn’t have access to in school, they will go a long way to get rid of it. One reason could be that they are just scared. Afraid of what books might influence their kids to believe or lead them to do. Richard Peck said, “Parents are terrified of the world their children are growing up in” (Gloria). And they thought that The Diary of Anne Frank was something to be afraid of.

The Diary of Anne Frank is an autobiographical collection of stories and diary entries from a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl who lived in a secret annex, a hidden part of her father’s office building, during the Second World War. Hiding from the atrocities and mass genocide that the war had brought to the Jewish people. While spending her time in the annex, she had nothing much to do other than be quiet and wait. In the meantime, she told the stories of living in an annex in a diary she had just gotten for her thirteenth birthday. Two years later, someone had told the Germans about their hiding spot and everyone there was taken to concentration camps where Anne died in 1945. This book was not challenged for reasons of violence of war but has been challenged on many occasions for Anne talking about sex, prostitution, and telling ‘dirty’ jokes. Some parents have even gone as far as to say “It’s pretty graphic, and it’s pretty pornographic for seventh-grade boys and girls to be reading,” and “It’s inappropriate for a teacher to be giving this material out to the kids when it’s really the parents’ job to give students this information.” It would admittingly be pretty shocking coming upon some of her descriptions about the topic, but she “had no books or friends to answer her questions, so she was forced to rely on her own observations” (Flood). And living with 7 other people, living every day in silence, her diary was the only thing she really felt comfortable talking to. And she told it everything she knew. She looked to her diary for emotional support. It was really the closest thing she had to a friend during the time she spent in the annex.

When there are complaints about Anne’s diary being “pornographic,” they are referring to the moments when she makes sexual comments. Some moments including the subject of prostitution, sexual jokes, and discoveries of her vagina. She touches up on that you cannot find the vagina because “there are little folds of skin all over the place,” and talks about how she does not believe how a baby could come of there because she thinks “the little hole underneath is so terribly small” (O’Toole). Ms. O’Toole elaborates by saying herself and other young girls probably have thought some of the same things as Anne when she was discovering herself. Anne also discusses the fact she did not “realize there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn't see them,” and that she thought “urine came out of the clitoris” (O’Toole). This could understandably make anyone uncomfortable. Especially if they were asked to read the passage in front of the class. What's uncomfortable to one person could be completely fine to read for another. For others, in situations similar to Anne, this could actually help them to understand. “How can you censor the thoughts and dreams of a young girl? Do you think in the diaries of eighth-grade girls at (Culpeper Middle School) they aren’t talking about their bodies?” (Simmons). Maybe reading this could help them understand that they are not the only ones and feel more comfortable asking questions

Is this diary really pornographic though? O’Toole describes pornography as “material intended to arouse sexual excitement, and I very much doubt that was Anne’s intention when she wrote to her imaginary confident Kitty about her journeys of self-discovery.” All Anne is doing is being brutally honest about what she is discovering and experiencing. She did not have any friends to ask questions to or talk about her discoveries or problems because she's been locked in an annex for two years. She was left to make the discoveries for herself and try and answer her own questions. Erin Blakemore writes “Frank’s inclusions of sexual material in her diaries makes sense-during her 25 months of hiding, she matures from a young girl into a young woman and even conducted a brief romantic relationship with Peter van Pels.” What is not understood is that there might be sexual content, but it was not written to be sexual. It was written as a part of Anne’s life and what she experienced during her time in the annex. Blakemore also says that “the real surprise is not that she addressed sexual topics-it’s that there’s more to discover about a 15-year-old murdered in 1945.” It seems that people get more worked up over someone writing about what she went through rather than the awful thing that happened to her or the reason she was hiding to begin with.

Other books have been faced with the label of being unsuitable for kids, and have been banned from schools as well. Just to list a couple; books such as To Kill a Mockingbird or The Catcher and the Rye for “language, sexual references, racism, obscenity, and sexual explicitness”. The Chocolate War was one book that brought on some concerns with pornography. But this book also has some pushback from students. “The Chocolate War resonated with the students because it involved characters their age that were realistic and relatable.” The Catcher and the Rye has been put through a lot of ridicule throughout the years. “Banned from English classes at the Freeport High School in De Funiak Springs as being 'unacceptable' and 'obscene'. Anne came across some of the same treatment, where the students actually made the school put it back on shelves. In 1998, Baker Middle School in Corpus Christi, Texas had the book banned after parents complained about the sexual references in the book. After the book was removed, students “fought back and waged a letter-writing campaign to keep it, which persuaded the review committee to recommend that book stay on shelves” (A Tale of Two Kitties (and Two Annes)). The students thought the book was so important to them that they decided to fight for the right to have the book back, instead of accepting the fact that they may be too immature to read such content. And while it may be true that there might be some rather intense material in some books children read, there must be a better way to handle the situation than trying to ban the book from school. Just because there is a part of a book that makes someone uncomfortable is not a good reason to be banned from schools. Either at home or in schools, parents who read with their child could “use their child questions as teachable moments”. And instead of trying to hide the material from kids, they should be taught about it and be taught how to deal with it in a mature way.

The Diary of Anne Frank is a work of art. Walking through the life of a young Jewish girl in hiding during World War II. Trying to censor or ban this book would not help the situation. Instead it is teaching students that they should not talk about changes about their bodies or be ashamed of it. If they really wanted to help, they would let their children read it and answer any questions they may have. They should try to be more accepting about her situation and not be banned for being honest.