Cancel culture, politics, the Democratic mindset and the news media have been very busy in the past 48 hours as the work of a certain …
Cancel culture, politics, the Democratic mindset and the news media have been very busy in the past 48 hours as the work of a certain children’s book author is reexamined. Here is the sequence of events: Step 1: On Sunday, media coverage suggests that Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia advised teachers that Dr. Seuss books were “no longer the emphasis” during the upcoming National Education Association’s annual Read Across America Day. A 2019 academic study which maintained that the books had “racial overtones” was cited as a motivation for the decision. Step 2: President Biden follows suit Monday, and omits mention of the Seuss books in his recognition of the reading event, which was Tuesday. Step 3: Also on Tuesday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announces its decision onto cease publication of six particular titles, including “If I Ran the Zoo” and “Scrambled Eggs Super.” Step 4: Dr. Seuss leads the national trends on Twitter, and the prices on eBay and Amazon of used copies of the dropped Dr. Seuss books go through the roof. Yes, a pre-owned hardcover volume of “And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street” was priced at $20,000 on eBay by midafternoon Tuesday. Another seller hoped to fetch $10,000 for the same book, Meanwhile, a used copy of “Scrambled Eggs Super” was going for $5,000, according to a brief examination of the offerings by Inside the Beltway. The price inflation made the business pages of the New York Post. “The prices of six Dr. Seuss titles exploded on eBay after the beloved author’s publisher said it would stop selling them because they contained racist images. Prospective buyers placed bids in the hundreds of dollars Tuesday for vintage copies of the books that were listed for as little as $4.44 over the past week,” wrote business reporter Noah Manskar. He also cited price leaps from an initial $15 for “On Beyond Zebra!” to $670.
