Dust up over Anne Frank's diary in Culpeper County, VA.

Due to a parent's concern about the sexual passages in The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, that version will no longer be taught in Culpeper County's eighth grade English classes.  It will be replaced by the version edited by her father.  (Or the play?  The articles I read seemed a bit fuzzy on that point.)

The director of instruction for the system, Jim Allen, explained:

“What we have asked is that this particular edition will not be taught,” Allen said from his office Wednesday morning. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. So we listened to the parent and we pulled it.”

Well, hoo boy: that backfired, for a couple of reasons -- first, the challenge procedure wasn't followed (according to their policy, there should have been a written complaint and a challenge committee formed), and second, not all parents in the area share the challenging parent's views.  As this commenter at the Star-Exponent put it:

“How can you censor the thoughts and dreams of a young girl? Do you not think in the diaries of eighth-grade girls at (Culpeper Middle School) they aren’t talking about their bodies? Don’t you see this is a wonderful opportunity for our children to feel like they have something in common with Anne Frank as opposed to (MTV’s) Snookie from ‘Jersey (Shore)’?”

(I think there's a double negative in there, but I'm sure you get the gist...)

I'll be interested to see how this one plays out.