Anne Frank: The Diary of a Sassy Teen

         All of us young kind-of-Jewish girls remember having to read Anne Frank at one point. It was THE book to read if you were into learning about World War II without having to read a history book. When I was roaming the internet I found an article "The Things that Anna was really frank about" that discussed the newer version of the Anne Frank book that included more "intimate" moments of her childhood life in the annex.
       

          So what does it mean, these "intimate" moments? They're just regular coming of age moments. She wasn't a saint, she was a little bitchy 13 year old girl (like we all were/are) in the midst of a disgusting time in our history. The old version of the diary was mostly edited by her father, Otto Frank. He chose to leave out some of her sassy bits like talking about his obsession with farts. Also, her very honest opinions of people that she met that might make her seem rude. Not only that, he left out Anne writing about her body and discovering her body. She discussed discovering the labia and her clitoris and other crucial female changes in a 13 year old girls life. Otto Frank thought that was a little too much to put out into the world in 1947. The consequences of his hesitation was putting Anne up on a pedestal, people saw her a girl that was different than everyone else. In fact, if anything, she was more like us all. I think that's what makes the book so special and more personal, seeing that this could have been you. The newer, unedited, version of this book is 48 pages longer (according to Amazon) and features all of the dirty bits that we missed in middle school. This whole situation goes to show the the world is afraid of female sexuality, even though this was eventually published in its full version in 1997, that is still 50 years after the original. Those are the most interesting time in female development that is often overlooked, other than menstruation, because it is taboo to talk about 13 year olds having any kind of curiosity. Her cousin, Buddy Elias, finally said that she wanted the world to know who Anne Frank really was, a regular teenage girl. 

           Side note: There were a couple pages that were removed due to the safety of some of the people involved outside the Frank family, therefore that is completely understandable because the times demanded anonymity. 

If you are interested in buying the newer version, it is pretty cheap on Amazon! I just ordered mine and can't wait to read it.