[issybird]

Some of the oeuvre, as well as at least two of the books in question, have been available as ebooks, so I figure it’s news.

My own feeling is that five of the six books won’t be missed. Four of them have had negligible sales in any case. But I do think it’s a shame that And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street will no longer be published. It’s a landmark in children’s literature and it’s really good, as well. A lot more going on there than just the language. The others are no loss. The reality is that Dr. Seuss wrote a lot of pretty terrible books as well as the great ones. Scholars, obviously, will be able to access and discuss the book at will.

The rights holder is entitled to publish or not, as it will. Books are pulled all the time for all sorts of reasons and in this case, I suspect it was only the Seuss name that kept them in print. At least to an extent, this smacks of a marketing ploy; they could have been pulled silently and it would have been the tree falling in the forest. Even Mulberry Street sold only about 5,000 copies a year. Certainly, it’s an economic decision as well as a moral one; I can’t see this hurting the bottom line and it will probably help it. Longterm, it protects the brand. And there are a lot of great picture books out there. Kids won’t be deprived.

What do you think? I’ll ask upfront that people avoid fighting words and phrases, you know what they are, and going partisan.

Finally, just for fun, I’m curious about people’s favorite Seuss books. My own is One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, followed by Horton Hatches the Egg which would win in the older kids division.