Schools ban Anne Frank's diary

Schools in one part of the US have stopped asking teens to read a new version of Anne Frank's diary after one parent complained that it was sexually explicit. 

Anne wrote her famous diary a few years before she died in a concentration camp during World War II. Her father published an edited version of the diary after the war, best known as The Diary of Anne Frank. Then on the 50th anniversary of Anne’s death, publishers published a longer version of the diary that includes things the 13-year-old wrote about sex and her body. It’s called The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition.

Until recently teachers in Culpeper County in the US state of Virginia had been asking their 7,600 pupils to read this longer version of the diary for homework. But the school board there banned the book from classrooms after one parent complained that it was sexually explicit.

Angela Maycock of the American Library Association says that decision is unfair for the pupils. "Something that one individual finds controversial or offensive may be really valuable to other learners in that community," she says. Now teachers in Culpeper County are asking pupils to read the originally published version of the diary instead.