A Texas middle school teacher was fired after reading from a graphic novel adaption of "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl."
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The passage of "Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation" contained material about male and female genitalia.
A spokesperson from Hamshire-Fannett Independent School District, about 80 miles east of Houston, told KFDM that this version of Frank's diary "was not approved" to be read in class.
"The teacher was sent home [Wednesday]. There is an active investigation," the spokesperson said.
The district informed parents about the incident in a letter, saying administrators would "provide heightened support and monitoring in the reading class to ensure continuity in instruction." A follow-up email informed that the teacher had been fired following an investigation and that the search for a new instructor was under way.
Parents are still demanding answers, according to KFDM. While the district said the book was never approved, the station reported that the book was on a reading list sent to parents at the beginning of the school year. The district has not yet commented on the book's possible inclusion in the curriculum.
Frank's diary chronicling her time hiding from the Nazis in German-occupied Amsterdam was first published in 1947, two years after her death in a concentration camp, and has been used in education systems worldwide as historical literature to educate students on the Holocaust. "The Graphic Adaptation" includes illustrations along with sections omitted from earlier publications, including one in which Frank expresses desire to see a friend’s breasts, NBC News reported.
It's not the first time a school district has taken action over the graphic novel adaptation. Another district in Texas, Dallas-Fort Worth's Keller Independent School District, along with a Florida high school removed the book after receiving objections to its sexual contents.
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