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The story, which follows a young girl learning to live with her freckles and her unique identity, has been removed from schools operated by the Department of Defense under the Trump administration.
Freckleface Strawberry, a semi-autobiographical picture book by actress US Julianne Moore, is the latest target in the right’s ongoing assault on books.
The story, which follows a young girl learning to live with her freckles and her unique identity, has been removed from schools operated by the Department of Defense under the Trump administration.
Moore was informed of the ban by the non-profit literacy activist group Pen America, which champions the freedom to write and the rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.
In a social media post, the author added that she was particularly saddened that “kids like me, growing up with a parent in the service and attending a [Department of Defense Education Activity – DoDEA] school will not have access to a book written by someone whose life experience is so similar to their own.”
“I can’t help but wonder what is so controversial about this picture book that caused it to be banned by the US Government,” Moore continued. “I am truly saddened and never thought I would see this in a country where freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional right.”
Freckleface Strawberry is one of a list of library books suspended for a ‘compliance review’ after a presidential executive order.
The Department of Defense said it was examining library books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”. After access to all library books was suspended for a week for a review, a “small number of items” were identified and have been kept for “further review,” it said.
The order follows a history of banning school books in the US that authorities find challenging.
Worryingly, this issue is not confined to the US. The UK is also facing its own wave of censorship. Books have been removed from university libraries because of their depiction of reality. In 2022, the government ordered schools in England not to use material from groups that believe that capitalism should end.
But banning Freckleface Strawberry, a book about a child’s self-acceptance? That’s a whole new level of absurdity. The right certainly has some peculiar ideas about what DEI actually means. And yet, these very same people claim to be champions of free speech?
And remember when the Trump administration called book bans a “hoax”? Wasn’t his whole “smaller government” pitch supposed to give Americans more freedom? Now, they’re denying even the simple pleasure of reading about a little girl with freckles.
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