According to the American Library Association, 2022 saw the highest number of demands for censoring library books since the group began tracking such things, more than two decades ago. That will come as no surprise to anyone watching the faux hysteria unfold in district after district when a certain faction launches an attack.

Among recent examples is a 2018 graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary that has been pulled from a HIGH SCHOOL library in Vero Beach, Fla.

Most readers will recall their own exposure to Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl,” and the degree to which it helped humanize the horrors of the Holocaust. We learned through the experience of a girl younger than many of us were when we first read the book.

But a vicious group calling itself Moms for Liberty is bent on making sure young people don’t receive that lesson in a format designed to appeal to modern readers. The group is employing a trick used by many who seek to keep our children from learning about the full range of human history and experience. It is pretending it is concerned the graphic novel “minimized” the Holocaust. There is also concern about a panel in which Anne walks past nude female statues. (Again, this is a high school library.)

Remember, these people disguise a hateful and racist piece of legislation by calling it “anti-racism,” and pretend they are “protecting” our kids when they intend to do them intellectual and emotional harm.

These are the same kinds of people who have asked libraries not to put biographies of Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson and Jim Thorpe on the shelves. They’ve asked a school district to stop showing a film about Ruby Bridges.

Understand the pattern yet?

Anne Frank’s diary was published in 1947. Millions upon millions of people learned something about the Holocaust and humanity by reading it. Graphic novels have become a more popular way for young people to read some of the classics with which many of us grew up. An important lesson in that format might reach more young minds, and for the Moms for Liberty — especially in Florida, it seems — that just won’t do.

Rational and responsible parents, teachers and elected officials must speak up and put a stop to this insanity. Its agenda is clear, and cannot be allowed to succeed.