Thread by @NaomiKritzer

I wrote about some of Dr. Seuss's lesser-known books back in 2015, and if any of the people currently wringing their hands over Dr. Seuss being "cancelled" have ever read "Scrambled-Eggs Super" or "McElligot's Pool" I will EAT MY HAT.

bitterempire.com/not-dr-seuss-b…

I want to note for the record that it's also not "cancellation" when the people you've entrusted with your literary legacy think that it's in the interests of your literary legacy if some of the books you wrote are allowed to be forgotten.

It is, in fact, entirely normal for a famous and successful writer to have books that stay in print and books that do not. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't age well. Sometimes you can do revisions, sometimes you just let the book slide into obscurity.

As an example of a subtle revision: I was a huge fan, when my kids were little, of Mercer Mayer's "Little Critter" books. There are books you get your kids because they have Useful Lessons, because Social Stories aren't just useful to autistic kids.

Anyway, I found the Little Critter parents markedly less sexist and obnoxious than the Bearenstain Bears. But there's one where he's shopping with his mother and his mother threatens him with a time out.

He covers his butt while saying "no time out!"

There was 100% a version (possibly written that way but never published? I haven't tried to figure this out) where he was threatened with a spanking! And Mercer Mayer revised that, which is fine!

If Dr. Seuss were still living, my guess is he'd rewrite and re-illustrate the problematic bits of Mulberry Street and he'd probably have let Scrambled-Eggs Super go out of print years ago, actually.

Hardly anyone's even heard of it, and the whole premise is, "I'm going to hunt down and eat the eggs of an extremely endangered animal." That's not at all in line with the values he expressed in later books.

Anyway. If you're thinking about Dr. Seuss today, some books I would highly recommend picking up:

1. THE SNEETCHES AND OTHER STORIES. There are four stories in here, and I 100% believe that The Sneetches is about racial discrimination, What Was I Scared Of is about bigotry,

and The Zax is about the US Senate.

It's an extremely political book. Published in 1960 to no controversy whatsoever that I have ever been able to find, and I have dug extensively through databases. It flew right under the radar because it was for children, about "Sneetches."

2. I HAD TROUBLE IN GETTING TO SOLLA SOLEW. I found this because of that article I wrote about obscure Dr. Seuss books. It's a fun book, the rhymes are good, and the moral (sometimes you just have to stay home and solve your problems) generally solid.

And if you're feeling wistful over the fact that six Dr. Seuss books are going to become more obscure, this book is so obscure almost no one I know even knows it exists, and it's a lot better than the ones being taken out of print.

3. THE SEVEN LADY GODIVAS. (If you can find it. Try your library.) This was apparently his attempt to write a "sexy" book for adults. It was a complete failure in that regard. Instead, it's HILARIOUS. Maybe his literary estate could bring that one back INTO print?

If Dr. Seuss's literary estate decides next year to bring THE SEVEN LADY GODIVAS back into print: I bet all the people currently weeping over ON BEYOND ZEBRA will *immediately* ban it.