OPINION:
Many TV stations have been airing segments about Dr. Seuss books because of accusation that a few of them are racist (“6 Dr. Seuss books won’t be published for racist images,” Web, March 2). Dr. Seuss, whose birth name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, grew up in segregated times and wrote books about White people, but his cats and other creatures were not racist.
The books being shown on TV omit some of my most beloved books from the 1950s, including “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins,” “Bartholomew and the Ooblack,” “Horton Hears a Who,” “Horton Hatches an Egg” and “Yertle the Turtle.”
I think these came out before “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” There are others that I cannot recall now, but I wish people would forget about race and study the moral lessons the books teach. For instance, in “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins,” Bartholomew learns to have respect for people in positions of power. And in “Yertle the Turtle” we learn that powerful turtles (metaphors for people) are not always right.
Dr. Seuss was not a racist, and I do not believe he had an unkind bone in his body.
KATHLEEN SELF
Virginia Beach, Va.
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