In recent decades, librarians and scholars have led a push to re-evaluate children’s classics that contain stereotypes and caricatures. Seuss is perhaps the most beloved children’s book author to come under criticism for outdated and insensitive depictions of racial, ethnic, cultural and gender differences. It also raises questions about whether and how an author’s works should be posthumously curated to reflect evolving social attitudes, and what should be preserved as part of the cultural record.ĭr.
The estate’s decision - which prompted breathless headlines on cable news and complaints about “cancel culture” from prominent conservatives - represents a dramatic step to update and curate Seuss’s body of work, acknowledging and rejecting some of his views while seeking to protect his brand and appeal. Dozens of his books shot to the top of Amazon’s print best-seller list on Thursday morning, nine of the site’s top 10 best sellers were Seuss books. The announcement seemed to drive a surge of support for Seuss classics. “Mulberry Street” was one of six of his books that the Seuss estate said it would stop selling this week, after concluding that the egregious racial and ethnic stereotypes in the works “are hurtful and wrong.” He went on to publish more than 60 books that have sold some 700 million copies globally, making him one of the world’s most enduringly popular children’s book authors.īut some aspects of Seuss’s work have not aged well, including his debut, which features a crude racial stereotype of an Asian man with slanted lines for eyes. First published in 1937, the book started Geisel’s career as Dr.
The rhymes morphed into his first children’s book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” about a boy who witnesses increasingly outlandish things. In the summer of 1936, Theodor Geisel was on a ship from Europe to New York when he started scribbling silly rhymes on the ship’s stationery to entertain himself during a storm: “And this is a story that no one can beat.
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