I have an old Dr. Suess book on my bookshelf.
It’s Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. The cover is pretty tattered and my brother and I have written all through it and circled some of the words. Being a book lover who rarely even dog ears pages, I’m kind of horrified to see how we marked it all up.
I do take a weird pride though on the one page where it says “Hand in hand more monkeys come” because one of us added “for drum” at the end of it.
It’s not the best rhyme ever but I like to think those books had a lot to do with my rhyming ability - it’s very Dr. Suess-like - as well as my love of reading and writing. My imagination was piqued by all those millions of fingers! Millions of thumbs! Millions of monkeys drumming on drums! just as it was with the Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham, or One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.
Indeed, when I reread the Lorax when I was in my 30s, at the encouragement of a friend, an environmental engineer, I readily embraced its message and celebrated Dr. Suess for his insight.
Perhaps that’s why I was a bit saddened this week to hear that some of the Dr. Suess books will no longer be published because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” I don’t even recall those books that are on the chopping block - obviously, they weren’t my favourites - but I understand the concerns.
Racism doesn’t have a place in our society. People should be able to be who they are and not be ridiculed or bullied or treated differently than anyone else because of the colour of their skin.
But I question whether erasing that written history is the way to go about it. Our language defines us and if we eliminate the words and language from our past, we lose that context when discussing racism and why it’s so important to not repeat our mistakes in the future. I must admit, I cringe at times when I watch movies from the ’80s and see how women were treated and portrayed - situations that would never happen today but give us insight into the lasting legacy of that time. It’s the same for books.
People should be allowed to read what they want and scrutinize it and discuss it so we don’t fall into the same old patterns down the road.
Getting rid of books isn’t going to get rid of racism but having that historical reference to talk about what happened in the past would be a good start to ensuring we have a better future.
@ksinoski
kelly.sinoski@100milefreepress.net
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