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One of the Seuss books on the no-longer-to-publish list is my favourite

But I’m OK with the company’s decision
Dr. Seuss books two
Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced last week that the title And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer would no longer be published due to outdated and stereotypical depictions of visible minorities. (TBNewsWatch.com)

My parents were always encouraging my sister and I to read, so we were regular visitors to the Point Alexander Library. 

The library was small, just one room basically in the country office for our little corner of the Ottawa Valley. Over the years, Point Alexander kept me supplied with the Choose Your Own Adventure, sci-fi and books on paranormal topics that I loved.

But before I could read on my own, my mother would take me there to get books for her to read to me.

Among my favourites was Dr. Seuss’ “Scrambled Eggs Super!” I’m not sure what about the book resonated with me as a young child, but I loved hearing (and re-hearing and re-hearing) about Peter T. Hooper’s adventure to create the world’s best scrambled eggs.

When I became a parent myself, it was one of the books my wife and I purchased for our kids. We read a lot of Dr. Seuss books. In fact, three of the six books on the list of titles that will no longer be published were among our favourites: Scrambled Eggs Super!, If I Ran The Zoo and And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.

Our kids loved them.

Now, despite my love of all things Seuss, and those books in particular, I’m OK with the decision that some titles should just be left in the past.

It’s pretty simple really: Stereotypical and prejudicial depictions of race are damaging. They are damaging to the people being judged and they are damaging to society as a whole. 

Sure, maybe I can’t point to a direct link between Scrambled Eggs Super!’s portrayal of some made-up African tribe’s culture and a real-world instance of racism, but cartoonish depictions of a racial group impact us at a deeper level, making it easier to see people as “Other”. 

And, when it becomes easier to see someone as “Other” it becomes easier to dismiss them, their point of view and, for some of us, their very existence.

Does this mean everyone who reads these titles will automatically become racist? Of course not, but that is the strawman argument many opponents of the decision are using to criticize it.

There is a poem circulating on Facebook about it (my mother tipped me off to it, actually), portraying the decision as an attack on history, as a theft of people’s childhoods, as a terrible example of ‘cancel culture’.

It’s none of these things. If the shoe were on the other foot and they were the ones being portrayed for yuks as less than human, they would be outraged, I’m sure. 

Plus, let’s not forget, we’re talking about children’s books. The world won’t end because you can’t buy “Scrambled Eggs Super!” anymore, but it may be a bit more welcoming and a little less judgmental if we can move, as a society, to a place where portrayals of non-white people as subhuman caricatures just don’t happen anymore.

Mark Gentili is the commuity editor of Sudbury.com.


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Mark Gentili

About the Author: Mark Gentili

Mark Gentili is the editor of Sudbury.com
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