“Minimizing, erasing or not acknowledging Seuss’ racial transgressions across his entire publishing career deny the very real historical impact they had on people of color and the way that they continue to influence culture, education, and children’s views of people of color,” the authors wrote.ĭr Seuss Enterprises said it decided to stop publishing the six books last year but made its decision public on Tuesday, Read Across America Day, an event to promote reading in children and teenagers and aligned with Dr Seuss’s birthday, 2 March. The study also found a marked lack of women and girls in the books. In 2019, a widely cited study by an academic from the University of California, San Diego and the founder of the Conscious Kid Library, found that just 2% of Dr Seuss’s human characters are non-white, and the vast majority are portrayed in a way that perpetuates racist stereotypes. Research has shown that children as young as three can form racial biases, and those biases become fixed by age seven. While Dr Seuss remains a beloved figure in children’s literature, his legacy has come under increasing scrutiny from parents and educators.

If I Ran the Zoo depicts two men, described as being from Africa, wearing grass skirts and carrying exotic-looking animals.ĭr Seuss Enterprises said the books “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong”. “Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr Seuss Enterprises’ catalog represents and supports all communities and families,” the company said on Tuesday.Īnd to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street has been criticized for including “a Chinese man with sticks”, who has two lines for eyes and can be seen holding chopsticks and a bowl. More than 600m copies of his books are in circulation, earning Dr Seuss Enterprises about $33m before tax in 2020, up from $9.5m in 2015, according to the company.įorbes listed Dr Seuss as the second highest-paid dead celebrity of 2020, in part thanks to multimillion-dollar film and TV deals but mostly because of sales of his books.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904 and died in 1991. It made its decision, it said, after hearing feedback from teachers, specialists and academics and working with a panel of experts to review the work of the famous children’s author.

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