From the file of religious fundamentalism, comes this:
The Culpepper County Public Schools has become the latest addition to the dubious list of schools banning Anne Frank’s ”˜Diary of a Young Girl.” The move to pull the books from all of the shelves in the county reportedly came after one parent found a passage to be sexually explicit.
The version of the book pulled from Culpepper schools is “The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition.” This version contains passages that were edited out by Frank’s father, including her criticism of Jews living in the Jewish quarter and some sexual references. The offensive passage is:
“There are little folds of skin all over the place, you can hardly find it. The little hole underneath is so terribly small that I simply can’t imagine how a man can get in there, let alone how a whole baby can get out!”
The book was assigned to eighth graders.
It is astonishing that a single parent can prompt a classic book to be pulled from shelves.