Recently, American actress Julianne Moore criticized the Trump administration on her personal social media for censoring and temporarily removing her picture book "Freckle-faced Strawberries". She said that she was shocked and puzzled that such a children's book was listed as a "banned book" by a school under the US Department of Defense.
Book cover of "Freckle-faced Strawberry"
Julianne Moore, 64, is known for her acting skills. She is a rare actress in film history who has won the "three major European film festivals" and the Oscar. Her recent works "May December" and "The Next Room" are also well received. In 2007, Moore's children's story "Freckle-faced Strawberry" based on her personal growth experience was published, and the Vietnamese-American picture book master Pham Le Yuan was responsible for the illustrations; in 2010, it was also adapted into a musical.
According to the book's official website, it tells the story of "a little girl who's just like everyone else. She's seven. She's short. She rides a bike. She's just like everyone else, except for one thing: she has red hair. And worse still, freckles! But she's learning to love the skin she's in. After all, the things that make you special are what make you who you are."
Julianne Moore holds "Strawberry Shortcake" in her hands and tells stories to children
According to Moore, the title of the book "Strawberry with Freckles" comes from her. When she was a child, she was often laughed at by other children because of her freckles on her face, and they gave her this nickname. "Strawberry with Freckles is a semi-autobiographical story about a girl who originally didn't like the freckles on her face, but gradually realized that everyone is a unique individual, including herself. In the end, she learned to coexist with freckles," Moore wrote in the post. "This is a book I wrote specifically for my children and other children. I want to tell them that life has its own difficulties, but humanity and community can unite us."
"So I can't help but ask, what kind of controversy is there about this picture book that led to it being banned by the government? I'm really sad. I didn't expect to see such a situation in a country whose constitution stipulates that citizens enjoy freedom of speech and expression." She wrote indignantly at the end of the article.
"Freckle-faced Strawberry" was also adapted into a musical
It is reported that these new orders of the Trump administration were issued and implemented through the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), involving 163 schools under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, located in seven states in the United States, Guam, Puerto Rico, and 11 countries with overseas troops. The agency announced on February 7 that it would review and temporarily remove books in schools under the Department of Defense that "may be related to gender ideology or discriminatory fairness ideology themes", and would immediately terminate various campus projects and festival activities related to the above themes to "ensure that the Department of Defense schools serving military families comply with President Trump's executive order on gender ideology and ending radical indoctrination in school education."
In fact, Moore graduated from a high school affiliated with the Department of Defense. At that time, her father, a veteran of the Vietnam War, was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany, and she attended a military school run by the U.S. Department of Defense. Therefore, she found it even more difficult to accept that her books were removed from the shelves of the school she once attended.
According to US media reports, in the past ten days, many such schools have begun to implement the new policy. The US Army Elementary School in Wiesbaden, Germany, has even erased the portrait of former US First Lady Michelle Obama painted on the school glass to commemorate the "Black History Month" event. And books including "Freckle-faced Strawberry" and "The Story of Ginsburg: From Civilian Girl to Supreme Court Justice", a picture book about legendary Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg written by Catherine Crew and illustrated by Zhang Xiaoxi, have been included in the "further review" list and temporarily transferred to the professional collection list of the school library. Currently, only so-called professionals can consult them, and students cannot borrow them freely.
In the United States, some social groups have strongly opposed this reform and condemned it as retrograde. On February 14, local time, the American Library Association and the American School Librarians Association issued a statement accusing this practice of "censoring legitimate views and opinions, violating the rights granted to citizens by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and depriving them of their freedom."
