In March of this year the company that oversees the estate of Dr. Seuss decided to pull six of his book that have "offensive imagery." I grew up reading Dr. Seuss books, but hadn't REALLY looked at them in a long time, so since I'm a librarian I promptly put all six books on hold so I could look at them for myself. I'm sure before long all of our copies will be "lost" and unavailable. I wasn't the only person with this idea either as I've only gotten four of the six titles in and there are large holds lists on all of them.
With YALSA renaming the Laura Ingalls Wilder award to the Children's Literature Legacy Award over how Native Americans are depicted in the Little House series, then this with Dr. Seuss, has made me think more about how should we handle these types of issues. Obviously, culture changes and things that were normal even 25 years ago are considered offensive or insensitive today. But, in my opinion, at least with the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, this is an opportunity for parents or teachers to talk to kids about these issues. With the Little House books a classroom could read one of those books, then follow with one of the Birchbark House books written by Louise Erdrich. Erdrich wrote that series in response to the Little House series to give the Native child's side/experience. I feel like it's a slippery slope to remove books for almost any reason, maybe that's the librarian in me that is adamantly opposed to censorship. That's why I wanted to see these Dr. Seuss books for myself. So, below I will add some pictures I took of the Dr. Seuss books and the "offensive imagery" included.
In my opinion, If I Ran the Zoo had the most "offensive imagery" in it. The last picture with the "Russian Palooski" wasn't mentioned in any of the articles I read, but I was surprised since it also included a firearm in the illustration. I also feel like in this book the illustrations are depicted things from actual places - Russia, Africa, etc. so to me it is promoting a stereotype or caricature of a real area/culture.
In my opinion, On Beyond Zebra is just an awful book. Even for Dr. Seuss it makes so sense and is just not a good storyline or anything. My children's librarian coworker agreed it was just not a good book. But, it was pulled for the depiction of men "in turbans." Regardless of how awful the storyline was, I didn't feel like these images were offensive because they are completely fictional and aren't supposed to be representing any real places/people.
And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street was pulled because of the illustration that included "a Chinese man who eats with sticks." Since this is supposed to be depicting a real culture and the picture is very much a caricature I understand this one.
McElligot's Pool was pulled because of the "eskimo fish" which is a stereotype of Native Americans in arctic areas. I did like this book and felt like it had a good storyline and moral of the story. I also found it really interesting that every other page was in black and white and the next page would be in color (picture 3 included to show that). I'm sure there was a reason for that and I found it made the book more appealing. Overall, I'm on the fence with this one.
The Cat's Quizzer was pulled for the illustration/question on page 11 that asks "How old do you have to be to be a Japanese?" And again, since this is about a real culture/ethnicity I can see how this could be offensive, as well as, it's just kind of dumb question anyway. I did like that this book gives all the quiz questions, then does give the answers in the back. So, if not for this unfortunate illustration/question I think this was a good book overall for kids.
Scrambled Eggs Super! kind of reminded me of On Beyond Zebra in that the premise is all kinds of crazy eggs you could collect to make an epic omelet. But, the storyline was pretty lame and like On Beyond Zebra I don't know many kids who would enjoy or be drawn to this book. I read that this one was pulled because of the depiction of Eskimo-type caricatures. But, in the text there is nothing outside of an area "near the North Pole" that attempts to describe a real area or people, so in my opinion this one is a little bit of a stretch. Nothing was mentioned about this book, but in some of the other pulled books "men in turbans" were a problem and that is also depicted in this book. Overall, I didn't think this one was a great book, but I do think the problems are a little far-fetched.
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