Oscar winner Julianne Moore claims her children’s book “Freckleface Strawberry” was banned by the Department of Defense’s Education Activity, a global network of 160 schools serving military families.
In a post Sunday on Instagram, Moore expressed a “great shock” about the decision to yank the book for review and said she wrote the book for her children and other kids “to remind them that we all struggle but are united by our humanity and our community.”
The Pentagon agency that is reviewing books in its school system says some have been removed on a temporary basis but none have been banned thus far.
The book, published in 2007, is the first in a series of semi-autobiographical stories by Moore about Freckleface Strawberry, a 7-year-old girl “who’s learning to love the skin she’s in,” according to the series’ website.
The young girl learns to accept her freckles because “the things that make you different also make you YOU.”
The story is based on the childhood experience of Moore, who says she had the nickname Freckleface Strawberry because of her own freckles and distinctive red hair.
It comes as the Department of Defense is conducting a “compliance review” of learning materials in its school system serving military families worldwide to see if they adhere to two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump regarding “gender ideology” and “racial indoctrination,” according to the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), the division that oversees the schools.
“As part of the review, books potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics as defined in the Executive Orders will be relocated to the professional staff collection for evaluation,” DoDEA spokesperson Will Griffin said in a statement provided to CNN Monday. “During this period, access will be limited to professional staff.”
The statement did not give specifics on how long the review would last, who is conducting the review or its exact criteria.
DoDEA did not confirm whether “Freckleface Strawberry” was pulled from shelves and did not respond to CNN’s request for documentation about its book policy. But Griffin denied any books had been banned.
“At this time, we are conducting a review – no materials have been permanently removed from our school libraries pending completion of the review,” said Griffin.
A memo from DoDEA obtained by the Washington Post listed some books to be pulled from shelves while the review is underway. It includes “Becoming Nicole,” the real-life story of a transgender actor, the newspaper said.
Moore said she was a “proud graduate” of a Pentagon school in Frankfurt, Germany, where her father served in the US Army as a Vietnam veteran.
“It is galling for me to realize that kids like me, growing up with a parent in the service and attending a @dodea_edu school will not have access to a book written by someone whose life experiences is so similar to their own,” she said.
“I can’t help but wonder what is so controversial about this picture book that cause it to be banned by the US Government.”
Moore – who won the best actress Academy Award for 2014’s “Still Alice” – has written eight books in the “Freckleface Strawberry” series, and an unrelated children’s book titled “My Mother is a Foreigner, But Not to Me.” It was not immediately clear whether any of Moore’s other books had been removed by DoDEA.
The ban is taking place amid a massive shakeup in the Pentagon, following Trump’s decision to ban transgender service members from serving in the US armed forces and gut the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Pentagon officials distributed a list of books, or chapters from books, to be immediately removed from DoD schools –– including course material on gender and sexuality for high school students and a lesson for fifth graders about how immigration affects the US, the Post reported.
CNN has reached out to PEN America, the advocacy organization for authors that notified Moore of the news, for more details.
“I am truly saddened and never thought I would see this in a country where freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional right,” Moore said in her Instagram post.
DoDEA oversees schools in the Americas, Europe and the Pacific region. Nearly 70,000 children from active duty military and civilian families attend.