Earlier this week, on the birthday of famed children’s book author Dr. Seuss, it was announced that six of his books would no longer be published because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
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The titles are:
- “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street”
- “If I Ran the Zoo”
- “McElligot’s Pool”
- “On Beyond Zebra!”
- “Scrambled Eggs Super!”
- “The Cat’s Quizzer”
CNN described Dr. Seuss as having a long history of publishing racist and anti-Semitic work, such as referring to a Japanese character as ‘a Japanese,’ and drawing him with a bright yellow face as he stood on Mt. Fuji. He also once described a group of Asian characters carrying a white character on their shoulders as ‘wearing their eyes at a slant.’
There was also an argument made that since the majority of human characters in Dr. Seuss’ books are white, his works – inadvertently or not – center Whiteness and thus perpetuate White supremacy.
And thus, Dr. Seuss was ‘cancelled’ this week, which basically just means publishing houses will no longer print those six children’s books. It seems to have had the opposite effect on his catalogue in general though, as Dr. Seuss books have currently taken over the Amazon bestseller list:
It doesn’t end there either. Dr. Seuss’s books were among the leading 42 titles on the top 50 list of Amazon’s “movers and shakers” on Wednesday morning after the ban was announced.
So it looks as though the people have spoken. I’m not really fussed if a publishing house makes the decision to stop printing certain books (at least it’s not ‘book burning’ or outright banning books), and after all if another publishing house wants to buy the rights to the Dr. Seuss books and publish them then as far as I know they’re free to do so.
But given the fact that a couple days ago NONE of these books were on the Top 50 list and have now occupied 42 of the spaces, pushing down big time authors like Jordan Peterson and Stephen King, tells you all you need to know. It’s not the books themselves that people are desperate for, it’s a conscious attempt to push back against cancel culture and give the middle finger to political correctness. People are just fed up of being told to conform to other people’s ideas of what’s proper and allowed.
So whether you think the Dr. Seuss books have a place in modern society or not, you have to respect the pushback here. People have had enough of things being ‘cancelled’. And they are speaking with their wallets to that effect.
For the 11-year-old boy from Manchester who was banned from his school’s ‘World Book Day’ for dressing up as Christian Grey, click HERE. Kid’s a legend.
