Censoring Dr. Suess Is Like Outlawing Common Sense

This post was originally written on 4/26/2012

Like many parents today I was raised on Dr. Suess books.  Heck, my MOTHER was raised on Dr. Suess books.  I've always been a huge fan, and I get all excited every year when it is time for Thing One's school to do all of their various Suess related activities in honor of Mr. Geisel's birthday.  I'll probably make her keep celebrating the man's birthday every year even during that gap between her starting middle school and Thing Two starting kindergarten.  Why should I be deprived of the festivities just because I don't legitimately have an elementary school aged kid for two years?  I've been collecting Dr. Suess books since Thing One was born, and I hope to have that collection completed by the time Thing Two is able to start reading them.  Not that kids have to be able to read in order to enjoy the Suess- my mom's favorite story from my childhood is about how one of my stepfather's friends, meeting me for the first time when I was three, interrupted  a conversation mid sentence to tell her that I was a child prodigy.  He'd been sitting in the corner near me as I "read" One Fish Two Fish to myself.  Actually, I had simply memorized the entire book- I didn't start reading until I was five.  In my opinion, there really isn't anything not to love about Dr. Suess.  Well, there is Fox in Socks, which I suspect he must have written to punish parents after receiving some critical fan mail or something, but that's it.

    Apparently there are some parents who do not share my enthusiasm for the greatest children's author who ever lived.  I cannot fathom this, but it must be true because a fan recently shared with me the information that a teacher in one of the elementary schools where she lives was prevented from reading The Lorax to her class by "The Man."  I'm not sure exactly who "The Man" is in this case, whether it was the principal or somebody else but that fact is immaterial, and besides, I'm not writing news articles here so I don't have to waste time running down details like that.  The important thing here is that some douche was hating on Dr Suess.  Why?  What is there in the pages of this book that is so dangerous to a child's fragile psyche, so obscene that it cannot be shared with a group from the under 10 set?  What prompted this censorship?  Just to be sure that I hadn't missed any dirty words or innuendo when I read it as a child, or that my sleep deprived brain glossed over as I read it to Thing One, I went to my little Suess library and pulled it out for a fresh perusal, alert for anything sinister.

     In case anyone's recollection of the story is fuzzy, it's a fun little tale, told in rhyme (duh) about a creature/man thing (The Once-ler) who comes upon a happy little wilderness with trees and animals and birds and fish all living in harmony.  The guy decides to start turning the native flora into something that people can use, something that people just won't be able to resist.  Soon his products are selling like hotcakes and he sets up a factory to turn them out at breakneck speed, just cutting down trees and pumping out "thneeds" night and day.  The Lorax is a character who is kind of like a caretaker of the forest and the critters, kind of like a cartoon version of the goddess Artemis, and he complains throughout the story to The Once-ler that his business practices are ruining the forest.  First the animals start starving and have to leave to find food.  Then the birds can't breathe with all the smog and they leave.  Next the fish have to move on because their pond has been turned to sludge by the waste the factory is pumping out.  Finally the last tree is cut down and even The Lorax bails cause there's nothing left for him to be a caretaker of.  With no trees left to turn into thneeds, the factory closes, The Once-ler goes broke, and all that is left is a toxic wasteland with nothing in it to make it worth living in or visiting.  Pretty depressing, but it's a kid's book, so there is some hope.  The whole story is being told to a human boy by The Once-ler, who at the end of the story gives the boy the last remaining seed of the trees that were cut down and tasks him with going forth playing Johnny Appleseed and replant the trees- cautioning him to protect it when it grows back from people like The Once-ler who would wipe it out in the name of profit at all costs.  So we are left to imagine that the boy went on to do this, and all the animals and birds and fish come back along with The Lorax and everything is hunky dory again. 61 pages of mostly pictures and not a dirty word or suggestive sexual image in sight.

     I'm not a big fan of censorship in the first place, but I can understand what people are getting upset about in books like Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse Five, and even the Harry Potter books.  Personally I don't think that a few self righteous prudes should be able to deny entire blocks of children and adults from experiencing these literary works, but I wouldn't question another parent's right to ask that their child be excused from a reading of something that they disapprove of, or allowed to read an alternate book for an assignment, or even prohibited by the librarian to check out books that the parent doesn't want them reading.  That's their right as a parent to raise their kid as they see fit.  I don't understand what anyone could have a problem in this particular book about though, especially so much of a problem that they refused to even let a class of kids hear it read aloud.  I've got to assume that it has something to do with the current political climate and the fact that this book is pro environment as opposed to pro business practices that screw up the environment.  Something about hippy liberals trying to brainwash kids into thinking like Democrats or something.

Talk about irony- Some folks have turned this book into a multimillion dollar franchise.  Bet they use green business practices too.  Stupid  lazy hippies.  No head for profit.

     Do we really still have that big of a contingent of people who don't get the message that this book is trying to teach to children?  Is the concept of using natural resources responsibly really something that can't be grasped by people who vote for both of the major parties?  Yes this book paints a picture of greedy business people who rape the land in a bad light- it's a children's book and children's authors generally do head into the area of extremes to make their point.  Kind of like Cat in The Hat uses ludicrous examples of the worst kinds of things that can happen when children don't listen to their conscience and behave the way that they know their parents would want them to.  It doesn't matter whether you are pro business or pro environment, the kids who are going to grow up and start running the show in fifty years or so are not best served by being taught that they have to choose one extreme at the expense of the other.  Books like The Lorax are meant to get children thinking about the decisions that they will have to make for themselves as adults, and serve as a jumping off point for parents to discuss with them how to think through problems and find a solution somewhere in the middle ground.

Gotta give a shout out to Thing 1 and Thing 2

     For a parent or an administrator to dismiss a book like The Lorax out of hand because it does not exactly conform to their view of how things are or "should be"- especially when they seek to deny everyone's children the chance to hear or read that story- denies those children, their teachers, and their parents a teachable moment.  Those teachable moments when a discussion begins at point A and wanders it's way along to point Z are an integral part of our jobs as parents.  Without them we are left with only being able to tell our children to do as we say, and that lesson rarely lasts beyond the time when we are there to say it.  Every child will one day be an adult, likely living without the daily influence of their parents and role models to guide the choices that they make.  If you want to, as a parent, fall back on faith that your child is always going to remember and act according to the list of ideas and rules you have taught them then by all means you do that.  Do not take it upon yourself to deny my child, who may sit next to yours in third grade, the chance to learn from a variety of different sources because my choice as a parent is to allow my child every single opportunity to learn how to think for herself before she grows up and leaves my care to start her own life and family.  Your rights as a parent do not trump mine.  Your decision to deny your child an experience only applies to your child, it does not extend to cover the other 25 or so kids in their class, or all the children in your community or in this country.

Seriously, this is a little extreme, don't you think?