Not Banned Here – Anne Frank's Diary, The Graphic Adaptation by Ari Folman and David Polonsky

Earlier this year, I volunteered to read and assess book candidates for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, something I plan to do again. It was time well spent.

To continue my involvement with the Mark Twain House and Museum (go, if you're anywhere near Hartford, CT, or visit https://marktwainhouse.org). I just joined their Goodreads group, and it seems especially fitting to have started with Anne Frank's Diary, The Graphic Adaptation.

Why? Three reasons: Anne Frank is one of my lifelong heroes, the hate and evil of anti-Semitism is rapidly rising once again, and this is one of the "banned books" in certain school districts and libraries in some states. Reading and supporting books like this one is a way to fight back against that outrageous ignorance.

Putting all that aside, I loved this adaptation of Anne's diary and highly recommend it for adults as well as for older children and teens. I consider it an excellent adjunct to the diary, and depending on the age of the reader, and their familiarity or lack of, it could serve as an introduction or an epilogue. I see it engendering family and reading group discussions and would hope it would also be taught in schools, though the very places where it is most needed are most likely the ones that have banned it.

This adaptation presents a narrative of the events that led to, and took place during, the time that Anne and her family, their friends the van Pels, and the dentist Dr. Pfeffer, hid from the Nazis in the attic of the building on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam where Anne's father had his business. There is also an Afterword that recounts what followed.

The adapter, Ari Folman, and illustrator, David Polonsky, have created a seamless representation of the events and emotions that Anne recorded in her diary, and expand on the key themes that come through in any reading of the original material: Anne's quest to know herself, the complexity of her relationships with her family members and the others in hiding, her search for meaning in a world gone mad with hate, and her need to contradict that evil with her belief in the essential goodness of (most of) humanity. 

May her memory, and that of all the people who perished at the hands of the Nazis, and by all extremists, be for a blessing.