My daughter Ella has a tremendous amount of the most wonderful freckles on her face.  She gets that from me.  I have loved them all my life, never questioned them, never doubted them and was never teased about them.  It comes with the fair skin and auburn hair.  As a matter of fact I had a dermatologist once who was tending to my acne with glycolic peels - we had finished the treatment and he said, "okay so now we'll work on getting rid of your freckles."  I believe my response was, "say what now?"  I didn't get why anyone, including a dermatologist, would think freckles were unwanted.

Then I read Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore.  I was excited to find a fun story to read to Ella about how wonderful and unique it is to have such a face.  Unfortunately the book is not a pro-freckle feel until the very last page.  The majority of the book is how she's teased, how she tries to scrub them off, how she even wears a ski mask in the summer to hide herself.  Yes, she meets a grown woman who tells her that hers disappeared when she grew up, which didn't satisfy Freckleface Strawberry.

I am not a fan of the message of this book.  I would have never thought of the teasing, the shame, the embarrassment, and now it is in my head.  These books have been sitting on my desk and I've been hesitant to write about them as I really did not want to share a negative review of any book.  But I honestly cannot recommend this book the way the message is written.

However, it has been brought to my attention that this book is likely geared towards those children who are dealing with the harassment of their peers regarding their freckles, and for those children I would imagine this book is great comfort for them.