Anne Frank Day in L.A.

When a teenaged Jose Antonio Vargas goes to the DMV to apply for a driver’s license, he is gobsmacked to find out that his green card is fake and that his mother had shipped him off to the United States from the Philippines illegally. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas reveals the ways he learns to hide his undocumented status while working for some of America’s premier journalistic institutions, and what leads to his to decision to “come out,” and how he becomes an activist for immigration reform.

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.

This is a compelling examination of America's history of racism and injustice through the lens of caste systems, comparing American society to caste systems of Indian and Nazi Germany. The connections are startling, disturbing,awakening and offer us a different framework and vocabulary to come to terms with the fractures in our society today.

Paired with selections from Anne Frank's diary, David Polonsky’s strikingly playful, and at times, somber illustrations provide a fresh sense of energy and understanding to the words and emotions of Anne Frank. This version of the famous diary will introduce Anne, and the perilous times she lived in, to a new generation of young readers.