Mcelligot's Pool

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This week, the Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia had to clarify that they are not banning Dr. Seuss' books, but are shifting are no longer connecting Read Across America Day with the author due to the "strong racial undertones" in his books.

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. Fensch, Thomas (2001). The Man Who Was Dr. Seuss. Woodlands: New Century Books. ISBN 0-930751-11-6. 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: Dr. Seuss’s work for adults includes some pretty unambiguously racist images. Husband-and-wife team Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens, who run the Conscious Kid Social Justice Library, developed a study of Dr. Seuss’s history of racism that features a small sampling. The six shelved books are all comparatively obscure works in the Seuss canon: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer. Beloved classics like The Cat in the Hat and Oh, the Places You’ll Go! remain untouched. But the decision, which caused enormous uproar across the right-wing infosphere, is part of a larger debate raging across the children’s literature community.McElligot’s Pool follows a boy imagining the far-out things he’ll catch while fishing in a stagnant pond, including “Eskimo Fish from beyond Hudson Bay.”

Reports about the decision came on the same day as the late author and illustrator's birthday, which is celebrated as Read Across America Day.

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In this story a young man is fishing in a small pond, young Marco has his rod and his bait. He is sitting and he waits. But a farmer comes by and states that the body of water is much to small, and just used to dump garbage. And that Marco is wasting his time. But Marco supposes that the pond connects to an underground stream. And wonders if that stream connects to a river, and out to the oceans. And because of that he imagines all kinds of fish, and creatures he might catch if he has patience. The six titles were selected after consultation with a “panel of experts,” according to Dr. Seuss Enterprises. The books will no longer be printed or licensed, meaning that the titles will also not be available for sale as e-books. McElligot’s Pool” is one of Dr. Seuss’ earlier books and it is about how a young boy explains to an old man how he imagines that there will be millions of fish of different shapes and colors in McElligot’s Pool. “McElligot’s Pool” may be a bit behind for today’s kids, but it is truly a creative book that started up Dr. Seuss’ popular line of rhyming books. But in recent years, the Dr. Seuss brand name has lost some of its shine. Read Across America Day, an annual day of programming designed by the National Education Association to get kids excited to read, is traditionally held on or around March 2, Geisel’s birthday. It usually features a lot of Cat in the Hat paraphernalia and other beloved Seuss branding. But when the NEA’s contract with Dr. Seuss Enterprises ran out in 2018, it chose not to renew the terms, leading to a lot less Dr. Seuss merch getting distributed to different schools. And this year, the NEA has pivoted away from Dr. Seuss entirely. Instead, it’s using Read Across America Day to spotlight children’s books by authors of color.