Did Florida ban "The Diary of Anne Frank" from public library shelves? No, that's not true: A graphic version of Anne Frank's diary was removed from school library shelves in Escambia County, Florida, after a complaint that it minimized the Holocaust with the inclusion of Frank's description of her private thoughts about sex. A group that tracks book bans recently added the original version of "The Diary of Anne Frank" to the list of books pulled from Escambia schools. A federal judge has since ruled unconstitutional a state law used to pressure schools to remove books with sexual content.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) shared on X by California State Senator Scott Wiener on August 25, 2025. The post read:
Florida banning the Diary of Anne Frank tells you everything you need to know about the MAGA movement.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: screenshot of X.com by Lead Stories)
"The Diary of Anne Frank," first published as "The Diary of a Young Girl" in 1947, tells the German girl's personal story in her own words, based on her letters and diary entries written during the two years she was hiding from Nazis occupying the Netherlands during World War II. It became required reading for students in many schools around the world.
Confirming if this book, or any book, has been banned by a school district is not simple as there is no single list. An online database (archived here) maintained by PEN.org, a national organization that advocates for freedom of expression, does list "Diary of a Young Girl" as banned from Escambia County, Florida, schools. That's the only result when searching for "Anne Frank" in the database.
(Source: screenshot of pen.org by Lead Stories)
A June 15, 2025, article (archived here) in the Pensacola News Journal, the newspaper in Escambia County, also reported the book was banned there, along with 1,300 other books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. The article gave as a source of its information an online list of books banned by Florida schools compiled by the Florida Freedom to Read Project. But when Lead Stories entered "Anne Frank" in the search box at the bottom of the article, only a graphic adaptation of the book appeared in the results.
(Source: screenshot of pnj.com by Lead Stories)
"Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography" (archived here), published in 2010, is not the same graphic adaptation of the Frank's story that was taken off the Escambia library shelves after a complaint in 2023. That book is "Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation," published in 2018. The publisher's description (archived here) reads:
A timeless story rediscovered by each new generation, The Diary of a Young Girl stands without peer. This graphic edition remains faithful to the original, while the stunning illustrations interpret and add layers of visual meaning and immediacy to this classic work of Holocaust literature.
The "Indian River Moms for Liberty" group filed a complaint with the Vero Beach High School principal in 2023, demanding that the graphic version be removed from the school's library shelves because it violated a Florida law against "minimization of the Holocaust."
(Source: screenshot of penguinrandomhouse.com by Lead Stories)
"Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation" was removed in Indian River County FL schools for "minimization of the Holocaust."
-- Moms for Liberty (@Moms4Liberty) April 10, 2023
Florida state standards dictate that all teaching of the Holocaust must be historically correct, specifically 6A-1.094124 (3)(b). It was decided that... pic.twitter.com/ZpQZ2YMvs5
The book included the then-13-year-old Frank's personal thoughts on sex, along with illustrations.
(Source: screenshot of penguinrandomhouse.com by Lead Stories)A
Sen. Wiener's spokesperson told Lead Stories in an email that he posted his comment after reading an article (archived here) published in The Guardian on August 16, 2025. The report titled "State-driven censorship': new wave of book bans hits Florida school districts," said that Hillsborough County, Florida, has removed "The Diary of Anne Frank" from school libraries, although it did not cite a source for that information. The Guardian's reporter also did not immediately reply to a Lead Stories email asking about her source.
But nowhere in the Guardian article is there a claim that the ban on the book is statewide. Lead Stories only found it limited to two counties, and the sourcing for the reports of bans in those two were uncertain.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has pressured some local school officials to remove a list of books he concluded were pornographic, but no version of Anne Frank's story was on his list.
Any effort to ban the book statewide in Florida would be more difficult after a federal district judge ruled that parts of Florida House Bill 1069, which has been used law for the banning books that describe "sexual activity" from public school libraries, was "overbroad and unconstitutional." State officials have said they would appeal the August 2025 ruling.
