Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore, illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore, illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Rating: 4 stars

This is a stretch for books on strawberries...but there aren't many out there!  Hmm...maybe I have found some inspiration to write my own?  Hmm....

This adorable book, and its equally adorable sequels, is by the Julianne Moore, who was a freckleface little girl herself (who grew up to be a big-time Hollywood actress, take THAT you silly kids who teased her about her freckles!).  The illustrations make me wonder how some artists make characters that are just immediately likeable, while other artists fall short.  It's a good story, but Pham certainly helped out the books' popularity with his personality-filled kids stomping around in cartoon-like clusters within the pages of the books.

It's a pretty predictable story: A little girl has freckles and doesn't notice them at all until other kids point out that they stand out.  And we all know that standing out in ANY way in middle school can be totally scary!  The kids around her call her names and taunt her a bit, making her want to hide in silly ways.  Finally, when she comes out from one particularly unwise disguise (a ski mask in summer), a passing mom enlightens her: I had freckles as a child, and they went away.

Whoa!  Good to know!

Our little hero is relieved, and is even more relieved when all the kids at school find her and explain how much they've missed her while she was in hiding.  What?  Teasing is actually a form of love?  Another strange lesson of middle school.  And beyond.

The book is good, though I'd direct them to kids older than five because of the teasing in it.  Call me silly, but I just hesitate to introduce something like that to my kids, who don't do it now and I want to keep them in that bubble of kindness for as long as possible.  But I'm so glad that this book exists--one of our nieces has freckles, and they are so adorable on her already beautiful face that I hope she never feels ashamed of what makes her even more beautiful and more unique.

And this is surely the first book I've reviewed that has a musical based on it!  Check it out here.