Like most parents, I could probably recite a handful of children’s books from memory. I have Go, Dog, Go! and all of the Janice Dean Freddy the Frogcaster books seared into my brain, and when I’m old and gray, I’ll be able to hit play and bring them back. Several Dr. Seuss classics are in there too: Cat in the Hat and Fox in Socks are two of them. I’ll be honest: They drive me nuts. But they drive me nuts for the same reasons my children want to hear them over and over, and why I acquiesce; the silly rhymes that drive me up the wall are teaching my children literacy skills.
It’s a good thing I’ve got some of these books committed to memory because soon, they may not be available on library or store shelves anymore. Yesterday, on Dr. Seuss’s birthday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the company supposedly responsible for celebrating and honoring the work of Theodor Seuss “Ted” Geisel, decided to remove from print six of the author’s works. Some are obscure, but others, such as And to Think That I saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, and McGelligot’s Pool were so central to his legacy that they were all included in our now priceless treasury collection of 15 Dr. Seuss classics. That treasury, which I purchased for $10.99 in 2017, is now selling for $500 on Amazon, with individual copies of If I Ran the Zoo listed for $1,000.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises has essentially banned these books and made them completely unavailable for the average family. While Dr. Seuss Enterprises has every legal right to pull these books from circulation, it has stolen a part of our collective culture and history by removing these books from shelves. This is not, of course, the end of our “reevaluation” of Dr. Seuss. No, when these book banning parties start, they don’t stop.
The whimsical “Dr. Seuss” part of Universal Studios is now being “evaluated,” as is some of his more famous work, such as Cat in the Hat. This exercise in “hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship,” as Enterprises’s announcement was phrased, may have started on Mulberry Street, but it won’t end there.
Unfortunately for the legacy of the famous author, those with the power over his catalog consult with woke “experts” and educators and allowed their fascist whims to have sway over his legacy. Enterprises’s statement about why they pulled these books explained that “these books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
If we’re being honest, we can admit that nobody 80 years ago, or eight years ago for that matter, can stand up to standards defined by fragility and perpetual outrage. In the same statement, Enterprises emphasized its commitment to “represent and support all communities and families.” This is simply not the mindset that Dr. Seuss ever operated under when he was writing in less than politically correct times. Will any part of his catalog survive?
Seuss’s legacy, unfortunately, rests with those who care more about scoring woke points than actually defending and promoting his work. But this censorship didn’t begin and won’t end with Seuss, either. There are countless other books (Babar, Huckleberry Finn, Gone with the Wind, Little House on the Prairie) and authors (Roald Dahl, Shakespeare) that have been deemed “problematic” by the same mob currently burning books like we’re living in a dystopian novel.
The speed with which the Dr. Seuss books have disappeared from new and used booksellers is a frightening reminder of how much power these mobs have over our shared literary canon. These classics are classics not because they may contain a few offensive references, but because they are written without the fear of the mob currently driving our culture into the intellectual dark ages where even cartoon cats aren’t safe.
Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a stay-at-home and homeschooling mother of four and a freelance writer. She is an editor at Ricochet.com, a columnist at the Forward, and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
