Trump Defence outfit pulls Julianne Moore’s picture book embracing freckles

Julianne Moore says she was “truly saddened” to learn that the Trump administration was banning the children’s book she wrote, Freckleface Strawberry, from schools run by the US Department of Defence.

Last week, the Department of Defence Education Activity (DoDEA) – a global network of about 160 schools for military families – announced it would remove and review “books potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”. Moore claims her book has come under the blanket review.

Julianne Moore says her children’s book has been banned from schools run by the Department of Defence.Credit: Getty Images

Writing on Instagram on Sunday, she said the decision was a great shock.

“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 realises that she is different ‘just like everybody else’. 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.”

The review is being undertaken to check whether titles comply with two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump regarding “gender ideology” and “racial indoctrination”.

A DoDEA spokesperson told CNN the reviews were ongoing, and no books had been permanently banned yet. The spokesperson did not confirm whether Freckleface Strawberry was pulled from shelves.

Moore, an Oscar-winning actor known for her roles in films like May December and Still Alice, said she did not understand what was controversial about Freckleface Strawberry, a story that encourages young people to appreciate the things that make them different.

She added that she was “particularly stunned” by the decision to review her picture book given her personal connection to the Department of Defence.

“I am a proud graduate of Frankfurt American High School, a DoD school that once operated in Frankfurt, Germany. I grew up with a father who is a Vietnam veteran and spent his career in the US Army,” she wrote on Instagram.

“It is galling for me to realise 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.”

Book banning is on the rise in the US, with some referring to it as a crisis. According to PEN America, an advocacy organisation for writers, 3362 books were banned in the 2022-23 school year. This figure jumped to more than 10,000 in the 2023-24 school year. Florida and Iowa accounted for more than 8000 of these bans.

In 2023, Tracie D. Hall, the outgoing head of the American Library Association, likened the current censorship to the McCarthy era of the 1940s and ’50s, and labelled it a global concern.

Moore echoed Hall’s concern. “I ... never thought I would see this in a country where freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional right,” the actor said.

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