Another day, another inexplicably ridiculous decision by the Trump Administration. This time, we’re talking about children’s books. As a part of their attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Department of Defense has been “restricting access” to “books and learning materials” that have anything to do with subjects like immigration, psychology, and a host of different subjects “trigger words” that scare the administration. While they haven’t gone full DeSantis and banned these books from all public schools yet, they are no longer permitted at any Pentagon-run schools.
One of these “restricted” books is Julianne Moore’s 2007 children’s book, “Freckleface Strawberry.” Julianne’s book tells the story of a little girl who is conscientious about having freckles, but in the end learns to accept them because everyone is different. Naturally, Julianne is upset and spoke out about it on Instagram over the weekend.
“It is a great shock for me to learn that my first book, Freckleface Strawberry, has been banned by the Trump Administration from schools run by the Department of Defense,” Moore began her Sunday Instagram post. “Freckleface Strawberry is a semi-autobiographical story about a seven year old girl who dislikes her freckles but eventually learns to live with them when she realizes that she is different ‘just like everybody else.'”
She continued, “It is a book I wrote for my children and for other kids to remind them that we all struggle, but are united by our humanity and our community.”
Moore, the daughter of a Vietnam veteran and graduate of the Department of Defense-run Frankfurt American High School, added she is particularly devastated that “kids like me, growing up with a parent in the service and attending a [DoDEA] school, will not have access to a book written by someone whose life experience is so similar to their own.”
The first of Moore’s Freckleface Strawberry books hit shelves in 2007 and followed its 7-year-old protagonist as she learns to accept herself, red hair, freckles, and all. “The things that make you different also make you, YOU,” reads the official synopsis. The pre-school level picture book has spawned several sequels, including Freckleface Strawberry: Loose Tooth and Freckleface Strawberry and the Really Big Voice.
“I can’t help but wonder what is so controversial about this picture book that causes it to be banned by the US Government,” Moore continued in her post. “I am truly saddened and never thought I would see this in a country where freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional right.”
The actress went on to thank PEN America, a nonprofit that seeks to raise awareness for the protection of free expression in the United States and worldwide, for “bringing this to my attention.”
Last week, the organization condemned the Trump administration for purging books — such as Moore’s — from Department of Defense schools that serve 67,000 children around the world. Other banned books include the Ruth Bader Ginsburg picture book No Truth Without Ruth and transgender activist Nicole Maines’ memoir, Becoming Nicole.
“The removal of these titles is yet another indicator of the new Administration’s flippant and autocratic approach to K-12 education,” read a Thursday post from PEN America.
I want to say that this is truly the stupidest timeline, but it’s actually a pretty sad one. We know that the DOGE firings blanket-targeted anyone labeled “probationary,” while the NSF and NIH funding cuts targeted any research that used words like “diverse” and “women.” I have no doubt that Julianne’s book was just caught in the crossfire, but this is ridiculous. It’s just really sad when an 18-year-old picture book about accepting yourself is deemed too woke. And also, not for nothing, but like Julianne said, she wrote it from her experience as a military child. Military children tend to move around a lot, which can be difficult on school-aged kids. It’s cruel to ban books that may help them fit in more with their peers. Hopefully, Julianne speaking out about this as a public figure will make people more aware of what’s going on.
Photos credit: Avalon.red, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, JGM, PacificCoastNews.com/Avalon
Is her book about something more scandalous than the plight of redheads? I’m not downplaying the issue. It’s real but what could possibly be threatening to this regime?
The 🤬 regime sees her as a “Lib”…so …..😡
Up next; burning everything that doesn’t support the regime.? This is our new reality. Deja vu
Julianne is a huge advocate for pew pew reform.
Because if kids learn to accept others’ differences, that will not stop at freckles and red hair. They may accept/celebrate different skin tones, religions and *gasp* sexual orientation and gender identity.
Yeah not being a childhood bully is a slippery slope to being an all around
decent human. Fair point.
Banning books about accepting yourself decided by criminals, rapists, fraudsters, drunks and drug addicts.. we are truly witnessing an alternative Universe.
Oh, how very nazi of them ! Show us that you are not a nazi regime by continuously doing exactly what the nazi did.
Everyone please read Umberto Eco’s essay on how to spot a fascist, written after WWII. It is a short read and most of it will be horrifyingly familiar right now.
It’s meant to be a warning about how we should stop it happening again, all the while Orange One is using it as a checklist
Yes we will be living totally in the United States of Russia very soon🤬🤬🤬.
Or maybe just the older version of the United States. My DC public High School was still often called “the white school” by people who remembered that a longstanding Black community was obliterated in order to build new schools for the then-segregated white school system in Washington DC. Teaching young children to value and even celebrate individual differences is not what white Christian nationalists and those who crave their support do — or even allow.
As a kid, I was allowed to read pretty much everything. I read through two local public libraries and the libraries at three public schools — to the point where I was told that one school library actually put up a plaque. In the midst of all of the current horribleness, the idea that ossified apartheid apologists are restricting what small children and older students are exposed to and get to imagine and think about hits me very hard. Students will be kept away from the books on my HS syllabus — because the current powers that be don’t want them to even think about the kinds of values that our Declaration of Independence and Constitution actually claim to prize.
They don’t want us to accept ourselves. They want us to be the same as the average Mar-a-Lago member.
We all better watch those Republican Makeup videos on TikTok!
I just saw a few of those the other day–and they are spot on!
“It’s giving dry. It’s giving dusty.” OMG, I was laughing.
These people are Fcuking ridiculous and they are ruining our lives. RESIST. http://www.fiftyfifty.one
This is not surprising since they have shut down the library of one of the most significant presidents in History JFK library in boston. first he takes over the Kennedy centre, shouldn’t he be building his own rather than trying to wear anothers skin. Banning books because you don’t want people to learn, What happens in a few years time when Americans cannot work overseas if they graduated from X,Y & Z colleges. It happens to people from Developing countries in the UK you have to do a conversion course for Medicine & Architecture if you want to work there. Since we all know about the banning of books your qualifications will be held up to scrutiny
I hadn’t heard about the Kennedy Library shutting down. I wonder how many institutions will have to get wrecked for the complacent folks to care?
Don’t worry. Because pretty soon the rest of the world won’t let people from the U.S. fly out of the country anyway. Measles in Texas. Bird flu mutating and infecting cows. New strains of Covid occurring. RFK jr. running the health dept. Pretty soon it’s not going to be America first. It’s going to be America only. And the rest of the world is going to close us off at our own borders. Then we can see how great America can be.
What would be the rationale for banning her book? I don’t get it.
They are probably blanket banning anything written by a known liberal/Democrat or anything the Nazi Mom’s group that shan’t be named (but Facebook had me mysteriously following when I would never follow or interact with such nasty dummies). The book banners are never the good guys.
It’s still a disgusting and indefensible ban but a little additional context: apparently one of the main character’s parents (the father, I believe) has two moms. So the book likely got flagged as LGBTQ and that was that. I doubt it has anything to do with the main storyline.
…We are truly living in the dumbest/most terrifying timeline.
The Department of Defense is busy banning books….WTF. I don’t feel bad about wishing death upon them all.
I bought the book for a friends child because she is a vibrant redhead with freckles and cries about them. She loved the book. Yes, the child is ‘different’, but honestly, aren’t most kids in some way? These idiots do not read, they just react to whatever little piece of misinformation hits their ears. As a former freckled child, I would have loved this book. My dad even once painted freckles on my cat when I got teased. Apparently it’s OK to regulate books, but not guns. We are heading into being a stupid country. That is not good. A well rounded education is important to us all. lf we are going to continue to compete in a global society, we need to not be the most ignorant nation. All of these folks taking away the Dept of Education, etc. had the incredible gift of amazing educations where they wanted to go. We all deserve that chance. Not just the financially blessed.
‘Self conscious’, not ‘conscientious’ (about having freckles).