I'D MAKE A FEW CHANGES, THAT'S JUST WHAT I'D DO

I bow to no one in my affection for Dr. Seuss, but no one is above criticism.  Now the folks who hold Seuss copyrights have decided to retire a few of his books.  They include some titles that I remember fondly, and others I’d never heard of.  (The Boners Omnibus is not one of the banned Geisel titles, by the way.)

Two brief points.  First, the decision not to republish six Seuss titles was made by his estate, the trust that administers his copyrights.  It was certainly not “censored” by any government, local, state or national.  As far as I can determine, there wasn’t even an attempt to generate public pressure to suppress the books by any organized group, Left or Right.  There is no First Amendment issue here. 

Second, there were definitely racist aspects to a couple of the Seuss books I’m familiar with – caricatures of African savages and Chinese coolies.  These weren’t the dominant theme of those books, but they were there.  It’s easy to be outraged about some generic cancellation of the beloved Dr. Seuss, but harder to make the case that kids today have a compelling need to see those images. 

Harder, maybe, but not impossible.  “Kids” aren’t the standard by which publishing decisions ought to be made, Huckleberry Finn, and all that.  If it were me, I’d have rolled the offending titles up into one deluxe slipcase edition at a premium price, complete with a prologue featuring Geisel’s antifascist cartoons, and a serious discussion of midcentury ethnic stereotyping and how it hurt those it parodied.  The price of such a volume would probably limit most sales to archives and serious collectors, but it would have been a way to avoid charges of wokeness. 

On the other hand, this may have been a clever “do well by doing good” marketing strategy.  Whether team Seuss planned it this way or not, Amazon reports that other Seuss books are flying off the shelves.  Good for them, as far as I’m concerned.  Long may they wave.