In August 2025, social media posts claimed the state of Florida had banned "The Diary of Anne Frank" from its schools.
In "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, which is commonly referred to as "The Diary of Anne Frank," the Jewish teenager recounted her family's two years spent in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The book was published in 1947, two years after Frank died in Germany's Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
In a post (archived) shared on Aug. 24, California State Sen. Scott Wiener wrote, "Florida banning the Diary of Anne Frank tells you everything you need to know about the MAGA movement."
Wiener's post had garnered more than 3 million views at the time of publishing. He also shared a link to an article (archived) published by The Guardian about book bans in Florida school districts.
Other people on X shared the claim (archived here, here and here) before Wiener. For example, in a post (archived) shared on Aug. 18, one X user wrote:
Florida schools ban "The Diary of Anne Frank" because it is "pornographic." So, "protecting" students from a few passages about sexuality and menstruation clearly far more important in Florida than students reading the thoughts of a Jewish girl who died in a concentration camp.
Snopes readers also searched our website to confirm whether the claim was true.
However, social media posts claiming Florida banned "The Diary of Anne Frank" were misleading.
Florida had not banned "The Diary of Anne Frank" in schools statewide as of this writing. However, a graphic-novel adaptation of Anne Frank's diary was removed from some schools' shelves.
Florida's Escambia County school district previously pulled some copies of
Given the above information, we rated the claim about Florida banning "The Diary of Anne Frank" mostly false.
Snopes reached out to the Florida Department of Education, Gov. Ron DeSantis' office and PEN America, a nonprofit group that tracks book bans throughout the country.
The state education department said in an email that "there are no books banned in Florida," citing a state law that puts responsibility for instructional and library materials on individual school district boards. The law reads, in part:
Each district school board is responsible for the content of all instructional materials and any other materials used in a classroom, made available in a school or classroom library, or included on a reading list.
In other words, any decisions to remove books from schools are made at the district level, not by the state.
Suzanne Trimel, a spokesperson for PEN America, also told Snopes via email, "No, the book is not banned from all schools in the state of Florida."
DeSantis' office shared an X post (archived) in which he called the claim a "lie." He wrote: "This is not the first time a leftist has accused Florida of "banning" a book that is on the state's recommended reading list."
"The Diary of a Young Girl" did indeed appear on a Florida DOE list (archived) of suggested books for eighth-graders. Frank's diary also was included in a 2020 department list (archived) recommending books for students in grades six through eight, which a member of DeSantis' team cited in an X post (archived) on Aug. 25, 2025.
What we know about Florida book bans
In December 2023, Escambia County Public Schools pulled "The Diary of a Young Girl," otherwise known as "The Diary of Anne Frank," from shelves for review, Trimel told Snopes.
A spokesperson for the school district provided additional information, telling Snopes some copies of the book that were in elementary schools were temporarily pulled for review related to a state law. However, almost all copies of the book had been "returned to shelves and could be made available for any student who requested the title," the district spokesperson said.
"Aside from the case in Escambia in 2023, we have not seen any other districts remove 'The Diary of a Young Girl' by Anne Frank," Trimel said.
The Guardian article (archived) that Wiener, the California state senator, shared on X reported that schools in Hillsborough County removed "The Diary of Anne Frank" from their shelves.
However, the Florida Department of Education told Snopes that Hillsborough County Public Schools "chose to review" a graphic-novel adaptation of Frank's diary, "Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation," by Ari Folman — not Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl."
The Hillsborough County school district was required to attend a State Board of Education meeting in June 2025 "due to the books available in their media centers," the state education department said in its statement.
After that meeting, the district chose to review all 600 books included in an annual report (archived) of materials that were removed or discontinued by one of Florida's school boards in response to an objection, according to the DOE. One of those books was Folman's adaptation.
The book had not been permanently removed from Hillsborough County schools' shelves as of this writing, a spokesperson for the district told Snopes via email.
The Escambia County district spokesperson said its school board removed Folman's adaptation, as well as 408 other titles, without review at a July 2025 meeting.
Additionally, "a fictionalized telling of the events from Peter's perspective, Annexed by Sharon Dogar, is currently removed from circulation as required by Florida statute because a citizen has alleged that it is pornographic," the Escambia County spokesperson said.
A handful of other school districts, including some in Florida, have banned Folman's graphic adaptation over the last few years, according to PEN America. Some of the bans were temporary and the book was later returned to shelves, while the book was permanently removed in other cases, Trimel said.
The DOE referred to Folman's adaptation as "nothing more than an imitation that diminishes the gravity of the Holocaust."
While Florida has not officially banned the graphic-novel adaptation of Frank's diary statewide, "multiple members of the State Board of Education explained that they felt the review of any book previously removed by another district would be a waste of time and resources" during the June 2025 meeting, a spokesperson for the Florida Freedom to Read Project said via email.
Some districts have also banned other books that depict Frank's story, including "Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography" and "A Picture Book of Anne Frank," according to Trimel.
In sum …
Florida did not ban "The Diary of Anne Frank" statewide. However, some schools in the state did remove a graphic-novel adaptation of Frank's story from their shelves.
Escambia County Public Schools in Florida once pulled "The Diary of Anne Frank" for review, but almost all copies of the book had been "returned to shelves and could be made available for any student who requested the title," a district spokesperson confirmed.