Mcelligot's Pool

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Vox’s German Lopez is here to guide you through the Biden administration’s burst of policymaking. Sign up to receive our newsletter each Friday. That’s complex work, not easily reducible to a handful of outrageous sound bites for either side of the political aisle. But it’s unlikely that as children’s literature struggles with this dilemma, anyone is going to be appreciably hurt because they cannot find an in-print copy of McElligot’s Pool. Over the past few years, Read Across America Day has been moving away from Dr. Seuss in its attempts to focus on more diverse books for children. You may have heard by now that Dr. Seuss Enterprises LP, which manages the beloved author’s publishing interests, has decided to stop printing six of the author’s books. In a statement released on March 2, Dr. Seuss’s birthday, the organization said: Here in McElligot's Pool, we find a farmer who says that the young fisherman will not catch fish in a small pool of water. In return, the young man speaks of possibilities. In this young person's imagination, the pool might yield many types of fish. Only when he follows his own imagination--we along with him--we discover a world of possibilities, a world teeming with possibilities. What a delightful book for children and those who read with them.

But the children’s literature world is in the middle of figuring out exactly how central Dr. Seuss should be to its ecosystem as our culture reevaluates the racist ideas that run very clearly through his adult work and arguably through his work for children. And, by extension, it is in the middle of sorting out how it wants to handle the many other pieces of beloved children’s literature that include harmful racial attitudes: books like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, with its fraught treatment of Indigenous peoples; the Narnia books, with their deeply uncomfortable Middle Eastern villains; the redface fantasies of Peter Pan. On March 2, 2021, Dr. Seuss Enterprises withdrew McElligot's Pool and five other books from publication because they "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong". [4] [5] Dr. Seuss Enterprises did not specify which illustrations were offensive. The book uses the word " Eskimo" in one instance, as an adjective describing a type of imagined fish that might swim from the North Pole to McElligot's Pool. The term "Eskimo" could be considered old-fashioned in American English, and has been deemed by some as offensive in Canadian English. [6] There is an accompanying illustration depicting the fantastical group of "Eskimo Fish" in hooded fur parkas.The story begins with a boy named Marco fishing in a small, trash-filled pond known as McElligot's Pool. A local farmer laughs at the boy and tells him that he will never be able to catch anything. Nevertheless, Marco holds out hope and begins to imagine a scenario in which he might be able to catch a fish. I don’t know who that guy is supposed to be. He’s sort of dressed like a gaucho but he’s on an island in the tropics. There’s nothing dehumanizing about it that I can see. Is the suggestion that it’s hot in the tropics offensive? And one more:

These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong," Dr. Seuss Enterprises told The Associated Press I wonder if the offense here is as specific as the images above or if the publisher just decided the whole concept of this book was Orientalist in some broad sense, i.e. othering. All of the made-up fish are certainly exotic and the book does present the idea that far away things are different from what you might find in a small pool nearby. I guess I could see someone finding that offensive these days but in this case I’m definitely not convinced that’s a good thing. Dr. Seuss is famous for his many children’s books. Books that spark the imagination. Surprise, and amaze. There is a large collection of old animated shorts based on them. And these has been several movies both animated and life action. He also wrote two books that though written and illustrated in a similar style and format are considered adult books they are The Seven Lady Godivas and The Butter Battle Book. Butter Battle is a commentary on war and is often found in the children’s sections in bookstores and libraries. Godivas I believe is long out of print, I believe the last printing was in 1988. And I am only aware of it because it is the favorite book of a friend.Fensch, Thomas (2001). The Man Who Was Dr. Seuss. Woodlands: New Century Books. ISBN 0-930751-11-6. In my humble opinion, of this kind of “Dream Bigger” trilogy (my point of view, not that they’d ever enlisted as such by anybody else): And to Think that I saw i ton Mulberry Street, McElligot’s Pool (this one), and If I ran the Zoo,... Sign up for The Weeds newsletter . Every Friday, you’ll get an explainer of a big policy story from the week, a look at important research that recently came out, and answers to reader questions — to guide you through the first 100 days of President Joe Biden’s administration.