BOSTON (AP) – Six books by Dr. Seuss – including ‘And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street’ and ‘If I Ran the Zoo’ – are out of print due to racist and insensitive images, the company that preserves and protects the author’s legacy said Tuesday.
“In these books, people are portrayed in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” says Dr. Seuss Enterprises told The Associated Press in a statement coinciding with the late author and illustrator’s birthday.
“Discontinuing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and broader plan to ensure that the Dr. Seuss Enterprises catalog represents and supports all communities and families,” he said.
The other books involved are “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!”, “Scrambled Eggs Super!” And “The Cat’s Quizzer.”
The decision to cease publication and sale of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company told AP.
“Dr. Seuss Enterprises listened and took feedback from our audience, including educators, academics and specialists in the field, as part of our review process. We then worked with a panel of experts, including educators, to review our catalog of titles” , he said.
Books by 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.
It remains popular, earning an estimated $ 33 million pre-tax in 2020, compared to just $ 9.5 million five years ago, the company said. Forbes named him No. 2 among the highest-paid celebrity deaths of 2020, behind only the late pop star Michael Jackson.
As loved as Dr. Seuss is by millions around the world for the positive values in many of his works, including environmental awareness and tolerance, in recent years there has been increasing criticism of the way that blacks, Asians and others in some of his most beloved children’s books, as well as in his earlier advertising and propaganda illustrations.
The National Education Association, which founded Read Across America Day in 1998 and purposefully aligned it with Geisel’s birthday, has focused on Seuss for years and encouraged a more diverse reading list for kids.
School districts across the country have also moved away from Dr. Seuss, prompting Loudoun County, Virginia, schools just outside of Washington, DC last month it was rumored that they had banned the books altogether.
“Research over the years has revealed strong racial undertones in many books written / illustrated by Dr. Seuss,” the school district said in a statement.
In 2017, a school librarian in Cambridge, Massachusetts criticized a gift of 10 Seuss books from first lady Melania Trump, in which he said many of his works were “ steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures and harmful stereotypes. ”
In 2018, a Dr. Seuss museum in his hometown of Springfield removed a mural including an Asian stereotype.
“The Cat in the Hat”, one of Seuss’ most popular books, has also been criticized, but will be published for now.
However, Dr. Seuss Enterprises said it is “committed to listening and learning and will continue to review our entire portfolio.”
Numerous other popular children’s series have been criticized in recent years for alleged racism.
In the 2007 book, “Should We Burn Babar?”, Author and educator Herbert R. Kohl claimed that the “Babar the Elephant” books were celebrations of colonialism because of the way the title character leaves the jungle and later returns to the “civilization”. are fellow animals.
One of the books, “Babar’s Travels”, was pulled from the shelves of a UK library in 2012 because of alleged African stereotypes. Critics have also blamed the “Curious George” books for assuming that a white person is bringing home a monkey from Africa.
And Laura Ingalls Wilder’s depictions of Native Americans in her ‘Little House On the Prairie’ novels have been so often blamed that the American Library Association removed her name from a Lifetime Achievement Award presented every year in 2018.
AP National Writer Hillel Italy contributed from New York.