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Following five Dr. Seuss books (of 45 published) being dropped from the United States Education Department’s list of “Read Across America Day” list, Publisher Random House has decided to stop publishing them. Read Across America Day” is held every year on March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss. The set of books, written by Theodor Geisel (Dr.Seuss) has been read by millions of American children, many sets of them bought by schools, but recently, the Department of Education decided to drop six books from their list, due to illustrations in the books that stereotyped Chinese characters as carrying chopsticks and wearing pigtails, or Indians wearing turbans, and Africans being pictured as barefoot and in grass skirts.
Dr. Seuss wrote 45 books and generally Random House sells about 600 million copies of his books annually, many to school districts.
As a result of those six books ceasing being published, they have become collectors’ items. The books, which were easily available on Ebay two weeks ago for as little as $5, are now being offered for hundreds of dollars, if in mint condition.
The six books that were left off the Read for America Today list are To Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937), (which has the drawing of the Chinaman in it), If I Ran the Zoo (1950) McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra, The Cat’s Quizzer, and Scrambled Eggs Super!
The books are not banned, simply they are not being published anymore, so if someone wants a complete set of Dr.Seuss books, they will need to see these as collector’s items. As of March 3, copies of a mint condition Dr. Seuss If I Ran the Zoo were selling for as much as $600.