Word: seuss
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Seuss...
...funny thing happening in the rural Northern California town of Laytonville (pop. 1,000) revolves around one of Dr. Seuss's fantasies, The Lorax. The book has been required reading for second-graders for two years, but recently Judith Bailey requested that the Laytonville Unified School District downgrade it to optional. In The Lorax, it seems, a villain fells a forest to make garments called thneeds, and Dr. Seuss urges, "Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack." Bailey's husband Bill, it turns out, is a logging-equipment wholesaler. After his son read the book, says Bill...
Bailey's request signaled a new skirmish in a battle for the minds of Laytonville's young. The townspeople (most draw their living from logging) began to buy ads in the Laytonville Observer to protest Seuss. Said one: "To teach our children that harvesting redwood trees is bad is not the education we need." With the second ad, says School Superintendent Brian Buckley, "we knew we had a problem." Last week a school-district committee voted 6 to 1 to resist censorship and keep The Lorax on the required list. Next week the school board gets a whack...
Their mother says the children used few "formal" textbooks, but instead read novels and instruction manuals. Their favorite books include Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks by Donald Harington, The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, The Double Helix by James Watson and Homer's Iliad...
...have given stature to such street doggerel as "Once there was a little boy,/ He lived in his skin;/ When he pops out,/ You may pop in" and George Bernard Shaw's effort for the young, presented at age 93: "Dumpitydoodledum big bow wow/ Dumpitydoodledum dandy!" Not exactly Dr. Seuss, but, as young people know, many a satisfying afternoon can be spent with leftovers...