six dr. Seuss’s books, including And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street And If I Ran The Zoo, will cease publication due to racist and insensitive imagery, the business that preserves and protects the author’s legacy said Tuesday.
“These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” says dr. seuss enterprises, a division of penguin random house, told the associated press in a statement that coincided with the late author and illustrator’s birthday.
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“Stop selling these books is just one part of our commitment and larger plan to ensure the Dr. Seuss Enterprises catalog represents and supports all communities and families.”
The other books affected are Mcelligot’s Pool, Beyond the Zebra! Super Scrambled Eggs! and the cat contest.
The decision to suspend publication and sale of the books was made last year after months of discussion with teachers, academics and a “panel of experts,” the company told AP.
books of dr. Seuss, who was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1904, has been translated into dozens of languages, as well as Braille, and is sold in more than 100 countries. he died in 1991.
remains popular, earning an estimated $33 million before taxes in 2020, up from $9.5 million five years ago, the company said. forbes listed it no. 2 among the highest-paid deceased celebrities of 2020, behind only the late pop star michael jackson.
rising criticism
Offensive imagery and plot points persisted in some of Seuss’s work even after the author changed them, according to Philip Nel, a children’s literature scholar and author of Was the Cat in the Hat Black? among other books on seuss.
in his first book, and to think i saw him on mulberry street, one of the characters is described with a racist term and portrayed as a caricature of chinese culture. in a later publication of the same book, that name was changed and the image updated, but it remained fundamentally the same.
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“It’s a little less racist, but it still doesn’t solve the problem,” said nel.
other depictions and descriptions of people from Africa, the Middle East and Asia permeate the books in question, he said.
Dr. seuss enterprise was far from the first to notice these problems. The National Education Association, which founded American-wide Reading Day in 1998 and deliberately aligned it with Geisel’s birthday, has for several years downplayed Seuss and encouraged a more diverse reading list for children.
school districts across the united states have also moved away from dr. Seuss, and in 2017, a school librarian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, criticized a gift of 10 Seuss books from First Lady Melania Trump, saying many of her works were “soaked in racist propaganda, caricatures and harmful stereotypes.”
and on wednesday, the toronto public library said a group of librarians is reviewing seuss titles removed for issues of racial or cultural representation. if they find any, a spokesman said, they may recommend taking the books out of the stacks or moving them out of the children’s section.
A spokesperson for the Vancouver Public Library said they are launching a similar review to determine if any action is needed.
nel said this kind of confrontation with history—questioning whether a book we loved as a child might be harmful to children today—is healthy and can be used as a springboard to learn about harmful stereotypes. Contextualizing Seuss’s books alongside examples that accurately represent different cultures and people can also be helpful, but it requires educators to be trained in anti-racist education and fully engage in difficult conversations, she said.
said that while many might think of the move as an example of “cancel culture,” he sees it as a “product recall.”
“These books date from the 30s, 40s and 50s,” said nel. “But if you think about, for example, cars in the ’50s, they didn’t have seat belts… now all cars have seat belts, because that’s a really good idea, if you like to drive and stay alive.”
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“so things change, and random house is acknowledging that maybe it would be a good idea if we didn’t publish books that harm the world.”
Canadian children’s book author and professor Nadia Hohn agreed that the decision to remove the books was a good one. it’s important that the books in her classroom affirm students, she said, and not make them feel ashamed or like they have to hide who they are. Children’s books that reinforce negative stereotypes can do the opposite, and she said the company’s decision to stop publishing these books is likely a response to parents and educators who have been speaking out.
“I think they’re just being responsible and responsive, which is important,” Hohn said. “There are a lot of, well, classics that are out of tune right now, and they’ve been problematic for a long time.”
At the same time, Hohn said that just because the books are no longer published doesn’t mean they should be swept under the rug or ignored. keeping them available for study will ensure that similar tropes are not repeated.
brian liss, owner of the toronto-based liss gallery, which sells seuss’s paintings, also said it’s important to continue discussing his works.
liss said that while he supported the decision to remove the offending books, he is proud to continue to display the artwork.
“Her legacy in support of literacy, the environment, and peace will continue to shine,” Liss wrote in an email to CBC.
check portfolio
The Cat in the Hat, one of Seuss’s most popular books, has also received criticism, but will continue to be published for now.
dr. Seuss Enterprises, however, said that she is “committed to listening and learning and will continue to review our entire portfolio.”
Many other popular children’s series have come under fire in recent years for alleged racism.
In the 2007 book, Should We Burn Babar?, by author and educator Herbert R. Kohl argued that the Babar the Elephant books were celebrations of colonialism due to how the title character leaves the jungle and then returns to “civilize” his animal companions.
one of the books, the travels of babar, was removed from the shelves of a british library in 2012 due to its alleged african stereotypes. Critics have also criticized the Curious George books for their premise of a white man bringing home a monkey from Africa.
depictions of native americans in their small house in laura ingals wilder’s prairie novels have been criticized so often that the american library association removed her name in 2018 from a lifetime achievement award it awards each year .