School bans comic book of “Diary of Anne Frank” over “sexually explicit” cartoon statues

A Florida principal recently removed Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation from the Vero Beach High School library for being “not age appropriate” after a local chapter of the anti-LGBTQ+ group Moms for Liberty (MOL) complained the book was “not a true adaptation of the Holocaust” and contained “graphic” and “sexually explicit” illustrations.

The book was challenged in March by Jennifer Pippin, chair of MOL’s Indian River County chapter. Pippin complained that one “graphic scene” in the book depicted Frank asking a friend if she’d feel comfortable exposing their breasts to one another — in the three-panel scene, Frank’s friend refuses and they both remain clothed. Another scene Pippin complained about shows one panel of Frank walking past “sexually explicit” nude female statues, WPTV reported — some of the statues’ butts and breasts are shown, but with very little detail.

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Grace Linn compared today’s book bans with Naziism and said her late husband didn’t fight in WWII for this.

“I must admit, every time I see a female nude, I go into ecstasy,” Frank’s words on the statue panel read. “If only I had a girlfriend!” A longer version of these words appears in Frank’s original diary: “Every time I see a female nude, such as the Venus in my art history book, I go into ecstasy. Sometimes I find them so exquisite, I have to struggle to hold back my tears. If only I had a girlfriend!”

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"Anne Frank's Diary: the Graphic Adaptation" is one of the best comics I've ever read.

It feels like having a conversation with her: it's wonderful , surprising, sometimes hilarious and of course, ultimately devastating.

It's also how I learned Anna Frank was bi! pic.twitter.com/XpA0bqu8AG

— Yamino