What was your favorite Dr. Seuss book? Mine was The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. March 2, the birthday of Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was adopted in 1998 by the National Education Association as “Read across America” to encourage reading and improve literacy and has been enthusiastically endorsed by teachers, librarians, and celebrities. An article in Teaching Tolerance, “[i]n light of a new study revealing stereotyped characters across Dr. Seuss’s children’s books, published just before Read Across America Day,” discusses “how . . . educators [can] engage students in a critical discussion of this canonical author.” Look at “Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books” by Louise Derman-Sparks for help in finding appealing book for young children that accurately reflect diversity, power relationships among different groups of people, and various social identities.
