[Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) half-length portrait, seated at desk covered with his books] / World Telegram & Sun photo by Al Ravenna. No copyright restriction known. Staff photographer reproduction rights transferred to Library of Congress through Instrument of Gift.
Dan McLaughlin in National Review exposes the ugliness of the culture control at work here. This is not so much about Seuss as it is about progressive indoctrination. For example, the NEA recommends a list of books to consider replacing Seuss’s books.
- Julián Is a Mermaid, about a boy who wants to be a mermaid.
- Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card, a story about illegal immigrants in the United States.
- The Prince and the Dressmaker, about a cross-dressing prince.
Finally, there are layers of irony in these controversies as far as the politics of free speech and free thought. Twenty or thirty years ago, liberals were obsessed with caricaturing conservatives as book-burning bluenoses. That was partly a legacy of McCarthyism and other speech controversies of Seuss’s own era, memorably satirized by Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451. Yet the book-banning energy is all on the left these days. Oh, the thinks you can’t think.
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