Anne Frank at the Montessori school.
Anne Frank’s diary – the definitive edition – should NOT be removed from schools just because some uptight mom thinks some bits are “pornographic” (Guardian, 2013). Anne figured out some stuff way before I did when I was that age. and I’m still learning. Good for her!
So THAT’s what those dangly things are!
The frank (so to speak) discussions about sexuality were part of the sections Otto Frank had edited out before the definitive edition was released. I have an old copy of the edited version as well as the definitive version, so I’ll have a read. Her father also removed sections that he felt might be disrespectful to his late wife’s memory: he felt that Anne’s often scathing views of her mother weren’t appropriate. Name me a teenager who isn’t pissed off at her mother at some point!
I also wonder whether Anne intended the passages about sex to be read by the public (as she’d been planning on turning her diary into a novel), or she would have edited them out in various rewrites. We can never know. I do want to get my hands on the Critical Edition, which has all 3 versions of her diary.
The Facts of Life: At the onset of puberty, boys and girls discover things about their bodies and their sexual anatomy, and for most of us, it’s hard as hell to talk to our friends about it, and even harder – dare I say impossible?! – to talk to our parents. For instance, Anne longed to experience having a period because she thought it would make her feel like a woman, instead of a child, and change the way people treated her. She was tired of being a child.
It’s not yucky or pornographic. it’s real. I’m glad the definitive diary will not be censored.
This post was originally published on 11 June 2013.
Here’s where you can get copies of each type:
Amazon.com
Definitive Edition
AbeBooks.com
Earlier Edition( Scholastic: 1952. ISBN 0-671-69009-4) This is the version I grew up reading.*
Amazon.co.uk
Critical Edition
The Anne Frank House Definitive Edition in the Bookshop * (OMG!!!! – they have the diary in Russian!!!!)
*It uses the pseudonyms Anne gave to her friends, family and the Helpers.
