Update: I met with the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America and they are cataloging the #MeToo movement as part of their archives collection. I alerted the manager of special projects for the #MeToo movement to include what is happening in children’s book publishing. So while the School Library Journal has chosen…
There has been a lot of tweets lately about #OwnVoices and who is writing diversity in children’s books after a controversial TedTalk by Nora Raleigh Baskin. I found this article by The Good Men Project that puts everything into perspective. In this post: I will lay out why racism is the foundation for #OwnVoices controversy…
I wanted to share some of the correspondence that I’ve had with Dr. Seuss Museum’s Director of Public Relations and Marketing, Karen Fisk. It started after this AP article was published and I was included in the AP video. Oh the Places You’ll Go! Dr. Seuss museum opens its doors Associated Press “The first national museum…
If you are the new Dr. Seuss Museum, do you acknowledge Dr. Seuss’ racist past or not? What’s the argument for either side? Don’t Include Dr. Seuss’ racist political cartoons or racist books: The museum is about the author and not the person. Except … that the website specifically addresses Ted Geisel: The Amazing World of…
Dr. Seuss and Dr. Seuss Enterprises profited profoundly off of the sales of this book, it’s Broadway rendition, the Horton Hears a Who! movie (which grossed $297 million dollars) and associated merchandise. None of it went to the Japanese community, including those still impacted by cancer and leukemia from the atomic bomb blasts. Dr. Seuss…
Valarie and I are gearing up for Multicultural Children’s Book Day on January 27th, 2017, so I thought this might be a good time to explain what I perceive to be the differences between two different but similar groups: Multicultural Children’s Book Day and We Need Diverse Books. In a business analogy, one is a…
Before Dr. Seuss was famous, he drew racist political cartoons during the 1920s through the 1940s. Was Dr. Seuss himself a racist, or did he just draw these cartoon for a paycheck? He was a racist. Geisel himself was vocally anti-Japanese during the war and had no trouble with rounding up an entire population of…