Dr. Seuss Books (skip)
Overall, we love Dr. Seuss books. The silliness, the rhyming and the rhythm are all beneficial for little ones to hear. We started reading Dr. Seuss very young and certain ones are still requested regularly. However, and those currently responsible for the Dr. Seuss legacy would also admit there are certain books that are not sensitive to what can offend people (which is especially not uncommon for books written in the 1970s and earlier). While we may not always agree with others perfectly with which books and why the books are offensive, we do agree there are some books that we would skip.
I Had Trouble Getting Into Solla Sollew (1965): This story wasn’t offensive as much as it included a part of the story that just isn’t appropriate for little ones. There were angry or mean animals, an enemy army, a bean shooter and poozers, or “angry lions” as my little one called them. We didn’t even read that part of the story as my little one was scared simply by the pictures. Again, fear isn’t what we want our little one to feel at this age.
Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now (1972): This is not one of the more offensive books but it’s still one of the books we’d skip. We didn’t like the tone and because little ones imitate behavior they see and hear at this age, we would rather skip this one. The narrator is rude. There is a lot of “go now!” and there is no kindness in the tone or language.
Hunches in Bunches (1982): It’s a clever thought to have all of your hunches as actual characters, so I am rather sad to put this book under this category. We could have gotten over the fact the hunches are mean and they fight a lot, especially since that is often how it goes in one’s mind and that could be a fun discussion with a little one, but there was one hunch that was actually scary and as I’ve mentioned many times, we try not to scare or have our little one feel fear while that brain is developing rapidly.
Cautions: The cautions are all mentioned above under the individual titles.
