Banned Books: The Diary of a Young Girl

I remember, once, at age ten, watching this series in class. It's called Thirteen During the War. Basically, it's a Dutch series about WWII from different perspectives to teach to older children (first years of middle grade). One episode was about concentration camps and Jews, and there was this one scene ín the gas chambers. You saw all of these bare feet walking through the ways first, their owners believing they were going to take a shower. Then the camera cut to a mother and daughter, who had been followed throughout two episodes. The two of them talked a little until a horrified scream cuts through and the mother kind of holds the girl and then the camera cuts away. I was near tears, but the boys were laughing because the mom's bare br**sts had been showing. I laughed along to mask my emotions. I hadn't even noticed. For weeks, those bare feet haunted my waking hours.

Justification: Not granted

Anthem: You by Keaton Henson

Rating: ***

Risk: X



Review: It may be one of the most read and celebrated novels of the past century, I had difficulties getting through it. So had my mom and dad when they tried their hands at it in their teenage years. Since Anne is in a very monotone situation, her diary entries are fascinating but monotone. I kept telling myself it would get mote exciting once I got further, but it doesn't work like that in autobiographical non-fiction. There's not necessarily a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's just the truth, blunt and clear, on the page.

That doesn't mean I didn't marvel at the novel's writing. Because we read about Anne in our history books and make documentaries about her, she always seemed so special and untouchable to me. Reading the book, though, I felt the exact opposite. She thinks the way my friends do. The way I do. She's a bit of a sassy girl, she has a strong opinion, and she's a good person. She likes mythology and despises a fellow hider. She's a good writer, no doubt about it, but I wish people wouldn't change her into an adult with some old soul. She was a teenage girl, which makes her early death all the sadder.

The following will contain spoilers for The Diary of a Young Girl.

Sexually explicit

This concern might even have been valid, if Anne Frank had been a fictional character, discussing female anatomy. But this is the diary of a real, flesh-and-blood girl. How can anyone censor her sincere, adolescent thoughts? (I'm using too many adjectives.) There's no perverse male writer behind the section in which Anne analyzes the location of the clitoris. These are valid thoughts of someone who grew up without a plump, round-faced ex-zookeeper in a plum T-shirt to give her s#x ed.

Side note: Since some US states don't teach REAL s#x ed classes, it's only a plus that Anne Frank can inform future generations of guys about the clitoris. View it as a service to their future wives.

Unsuited for age group

I was seven when my elementary school teacher, who had these rimless glasses and her hair in a bun, first sat us on chairs in a circle to combine our knowledge of the Holocaust. One of my classmates informed the rest of us of the gas chambers. (I think it was a blond boy, but I don't know which one for sure. I think it was the short one.) The Holocaust was always a subject in history many people looked forward to. It sounds sick, of course, but there was always more to learn as you grew older. For example, two years ago, I learned of the experiment performed on Jews in concentration camps. There was a Nazi officer whose wife made lampshades out of human skin. My stomach flipped.

I know it's tempting to erase this part of history, to forget this climax of human cruelty. However, to eradicate hatred, totalitarianism, and racism, we need to remember it. We need to remember what we are capable of executing at our worst, but what we can also defy at our best.