Why one Cambridge school won't be accepting books Melania Trump sent it

Maybe they thought better of it and decided to keep the donation?

Not likely.

The Cambridge Librarian offered some good reasons for why she thought alternate books would be better. Hopefully it will spur a larger discussion of the merits of modern children's literature. That seems to be the point. Good for her.

There is a lot of nuance in the full post. The librarian-writer has a lot of good points, but also takes the opportunity to drag politics in and then slam Dr Suess. Yikes!

Well, I'm probably not as much of an expert as Liz Phipps Soeiro, but I'm the father of three kids, and I read them a lot of books, and Dr. Seuss holds up a lot better than a lot of the crap out there for kids (e.g. P.D. Eastman and too many contemporary books to list). If they're cliches, it's for the same reason Shakespeare is a cliche. He did it first, and he did it better than almost anyone who came after him.

And no, the occasional unfortunate visual stereotype notwithstanding, his books are not "steeped in racist propaganda". If there were specific examples in the specific books that Mrs. Trump chose, that would be a valid reason to consider excluding them from the school, but hardly a reason to exclude his works completely.

Even if the Cambridge public or school library (not sure which) doesn't want them, someone else will. Put them in a Little Free Library box and they will be snapped up.

If the 1st lady took the time to respond to her post and either defend the Seuss books or actually took some of her suggestions. You know, intelligent debate and discussion.

(not even sure the First Lady had any hand in this) sends a group of Dr. Suess books to this school and Ms. Soeiro basically says that the gift sucks (could be better thought out), and you, Ms. Trump, suffer from a lack of learning and empathy. And, oh, by the way, you really need to catch up your your own reading because you are ignorant. May I suggest these titles?

Hokey. I understand that you may think (or not) these things about the First Lady and her husband. However, you, Ms. Soeiro, as someone who is educated, should try to understand that not everyone is aware of Dr. Seuss's poltical and racist undertones in his books. I dare say most kids do not. (And he was more complex that just a racist bigot. Not cool to pick and choose his flaws for your argument, Ms. Soeiro, while ignoring the positives).

Oh, by the way, Insulting a person who sends your institution a gift is not a way to win support to your way of thinking. Unfortunately, many who exhibit smugness like Ms. Soeiro still do not understand that that way of acting is what, in part, got us Ms. Trump's husband in power.

But this is appalling, and rude. Let's focus on the truly awful stuff coming out of the Trump administration, and not a gift of classic children's books by an author so beloved that Obama chose his birthday as the day for Read Across America Day. Not to mention an author whose books had themes of environmentalism, anti-fascism, and pacifism. This, unfortunately, is playing right into the anti-PC folks' hands.

Are we really adding the works of Dr. Seuss to the list of banned/challenged books?

I wonder if Soeiro knows about Giesl's view of Nazis?

I agree that the librarian's letter was rude/passive-aggressive. I teach my kids that the proper response to a gift that you don't want is "Thank you, that was very thoughtful."

In this case, it appears that Ms. Soerio wanted to spark a discussion of racist stereotypes in children's literature, which is, IMO, an extremely valuable discussion to have. Unfortunately, she couldn't have done more to sabotage such a discussion if that had been her explicit intent.

Yes, Dr. Seuss drew vile racist propaganda during World War II, along with the animators of Warner Brothers cartoons and, I'd imagine, hundreds of other illustrators at the time. Such propaganda is completely unrelated to his children's books and should have no bearing on the discussion of same.

Yes, some of his children's books have gross racist stereotypes in them, presumably his earlier ones (I've spent too much time on this subject already today and am not going to research his entire bibliography), which were created during a time when virtually the only depictions of non-white characters in pop culture were racist stereotypes.

Those caricatures are certainly problematic, and worthy of discussion, but to claim, as Soerio seems to be doing, that they taint all Seuss books by association and render his entire body of work unacceptable is only to play into the culture war propagated by the likes of Fox News who, I assume, are already preparing to lead off their nightly broadcast with the story of how DR SEUSS WAS BANNED BY PC MOONBATSZ!!!1!!1!!11one

There are two questions here.

The first is whether the specific books donated by Mrs. Trump contain such stereotyped caricatures (the list is available in the blog post). Based on the ones I've read (there are some obscure ones in there), I would say not (one should note that the two specific examples cited by Ms. Soerio include the very first children's book Seuss ever published, and neither are included in the collection that was donated).

Based on the googling I've done today, there is apparently some question about whether The Cat in the Hat represents racist minstrelsy, which strikes me as a bit far-fetched, but even leaving that book out, other classics such as One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and Green Eggs and Ham certainly belong in every library, everywhere, IMO.

The other question is how to respond to racist stereotypes that were not intended to be harmful and which were completely consistent with the cultural norms of their time (e.g. Asian characters in conical "rice paddy" hats or "exotic" middle-eastern characters in turbans).

In the case of works that have considerable merit aside from the stereotypes (e.g. The Merchant of Venice and Seuss's work), I would suggest that they offer the an opportunity for teaching students about how commonplace such racism was in past times. Specifically, the cartoony "soft" racism found in some Seuss books does not strike me as being particularly harmful in and of itself; I grew up with it (and much worse, e.g. the Babar books or Dr. Doolittle) and did not turn into a racist myself.

There may certainly be an argument that such books (which again, do not appear to have been included in the collection donated by Mrs. Trump) might no longer be appropriate for the general children's collection in a library, and should instead be presented in such a way that explains the context in which they were originally published.

But to claim that such an argument renders all of Dr. Seuss's work unfit for public consumption is completely ludicrous, and does not appear particularly relevant to the specific books in question.

http://nerdalicious.com.au/books/banned-books-week-2014-dr-seuss-banned-...

In 2013 a patron requested that Hop on Pop be removed from the Toronto Public Library, saying that it encouraged children to use violence against their fathers.

On the other hand, as the father of small children, I support this action one million percent.

Yeah that sounds like the cambridge response. Just say we don't want the books cause we don't like you. Simple and straight to the point.

If Bill Clinton, spouse of President Hillary Clinton sent these books, I think she would have kept them.

I realize for some people that catering to the easily offended is job security in Cambridge, but this stretches it just a weeee bit. Maybe she’d prefer Home Video For Kids by Kim Kardashian or a manual on good parenting from Lena Dunham.

So they're complaining that Dr Seuss was a racist, and yet the first picture I see is of a woman wearing a burka, an instrument of women's oppression.

hrmmmm

didn't vote for Trump before shit gets thrown

Did Cambridge pull the books with blonde, blue eyed Native American women? Try the crab cakes in Pow Wow Chow!

The most damaging thing about Soeiro's response is that the focus on the merits of Dr. Seuss (or lack thereof) obscures the extremely important point she makes earlier on:

My school and my library are indeed award-winning. I work in a district that has plenty of resources, which contributes directly to “excellence.” Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an amazing city with robust social programming, a responsive city government, free all-day kindergarten, and well-paid teachers (relatively speaking — many of us can’t afford to live in the city in which we teach). My students have access to a school library with over nine thousand volumes and a librarian with a graduate degree in library science.

...

Meanwhile, school libraries around the country are being shuttered. Cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit are suffering through expansion, privatization, and school “choice” with no interest in outcomes of children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. Are those kids any less deserving of books simply because of circumstances beyond their control? Why not go out of your way to gift books to underfunded and underprivileged communities that continue to be marginalized and maligned by policies put in place by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos?

This point cannot be repeated frequently enough or loudly enough. Cambridge schools perform well because Cambridge schools are well-funded. Schools in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit do not perform well because they are underfunded, not (as the popular right-wing myth holds) because their teachers are lazy or because their unions are too powerful, and not (as the popular bipartisan myth holds) because their students don't follow a nationally-standardized curriculum or take enough standardized tests.

But by bringing the (superficial, extremely unhelpful) discussion of racism in Dr. Seuss's work into the same letter, Soeiro guarantees that nobody will focus on anything else, and her initial point will be completely ignored (as, I believe, it has been in this comments thread until now).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I6NQ2Le6c8

Seriously, Melania Trump sends books that were probably chosen to be as inoffensive as possible and gets her hand bitten. I'm no fan of the Trumps, but I the same people who are in a huff about this would have insisted on respect for the office of the presidency when the Obamas were in the White House. Melania ought to get the same.

That letter was certainly not respectful. Like many gestures of disrespect, it has turned out to be a boomerang insult.

But to each his/her own. I'm not sure if there has yet emerged a truly effective way to fight him, so best of luck to all I guess.

Wasn't Seuss a local guy? Seemingly an odd target for the old "KKK" branding iron. Of course I never met him.

and editorial cartoons back before he became a children's book author. Propaganda cartoons that racially caricatured our Axis foes popped up everywhere in the 40s, even in Warner Bros. cartoons. He expressed regret for them pretty quickly, in the 50s, and many of his children's books are clear homilies on tolerance ("The Sneetches and Other Stories" comes quickly to mind.)

I'm not familiar with racist tropes in any of his children's books. If they're there, I guess it raises an old conundrum: should you entirely write off an artist's work for some of his sins in life? Can Seuss's books that don't have any such racist themes, subtle or otherwise, still be appreciated?

Arrogance is arrogance no matter what your political allegiances are.

Not even in Liz Phipps Soeiro's wildest dreams will she bring so much to children as Theodore Geisel has and does.

I wonder if her library is short of books on manners and humility.

Sounds like she was reprimanded.

The Cambridge School system says the opinions in the editorial do not represent the district and released a statement, which says in part: “In this instance, the employee was not authorized to accept or reject donated books on behalf of the school or school district. We have counseled the employee on all relevant policies, including the policy against public resources being used for political purposes.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/librarian-explains-why-she-rejected-books-donated-by-melania-trump/