Ruth and Freckleface Banned

With the firehose of bad decisions spewing forth from this White House, I vacillate between trying to stay informed and wanting to ignore the mistaken path this country blithely follows. As a former children’s librarian, I am dismayed by the administration’s recent order to remove certain picture books from U.S. military schools. In an unstable world with bombs hitting targets in Gaza and Ukraine and civil wars in Sudan and Myanmar, I would think the Department of Defense would have more relevant tasks to undertake than pulling from its school library shelves Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore and No Truth Without Ruth by Kathleen Krull.

Here is a brief synopsis in case you are not familiar with these two picture books.

• No Truth Without Ruth – An age-appropriate biography of the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from a small girl who chipped a tooth while twirling a baton to Supreme Court Justice making major decisions while donned in a black robe and her signatory lace collar.
• Freckleface Strawberry – Tired of being teased because of her looks, the story tells of a young girl’s antics to hide her face before accepting her freckles.

While I may be eight years into retirement, my long-held belief in intellectual freedom as basic tenet of librarianship still rings true. As defined by the American Library Association: “Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.”

I encourage you to read these titles for yourself and determine whether these books are, as described by the administration, “radical indoctrination.” I think not but take a look.