Dr. Seuss Too Political?

A school in Canada has banned Yertle the Turtle for being "too political." What is the world coming to? Dr. Seuss is probably rolling over in his grave!
From Huffington Post:

According to the Globe and Mail, an elementary school teacher in Prince Rupert was told she could not display the quote, "I know up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here on the bottom, we too should have rights” from the book in her classroom.
Dave Stigant, acting director of instruction for the Prince Rupert School District, stated the decision was based on the November, 2011 ban by an arbitrator on political messages in schools in the province, though the ongoing labour dispute between the teacher's union and the province played a role as well.

Whenever I read a story like this, I shake my head. Schools don't just exist to turn people into conformists, but to teach children to think about ideas. The flag that hangs in every classroom is just as political as Yertle the Turtle. Values such as equality are simple human rights and should be taught that way, and silencing a teacher sends a message to children that is just plain wrong. I think some of these school administrators need to read the book again. Are they going to ban Horton Hears a Who next? "A person's a person no matter how small."

However, there's no doubt that Theodore Geisel, alias Dr. Seuss, created stories as cautionary tales about political realities of the 20th century. Back in 2000 an exhibit of Dr. Seuss's World War II cartoons toured parts of the country. The Springfield Massachusetts Library Association website has a great essay called "The Political Dr. Seuss, which quotes Richard H. Minear, an expert on the worldly and satirical side of Seuss:

Minear said that there is "a disconnect between what we usually think of as Dr. Seuss and the content of the cartoons." However, many Dr. Seuss's whimsical children's books also contain serious themes. Yertle the Turtle, for example, is a cautionary tale against dictators. The Lorax contains a strong environmental message. The Sneetches is a plea for racial tolerance. Horton Hears a Who is a parable about the American Occupation of Japan. And The Butter Battle Book pillories the Cold War and nuclear deterrence. Even the Cat in the Hat's famous red-and-white-striped hat has a political predecessor in the top hat Uncle Sam wears in Dr. Seuss's wartime cartoons.

Some of these characters, such as a Sneetch-type creature and a prototype of Yertle the Turtle, made their first appearance not in Dr. Seuss's children's books, but in the some 400 political cartoons he drew for PM, a left-wing daily newspaper published in New York from 1940 to 1948. Dr. Seuss worked as an editorial cartoonist for the paper from 1941 to 1943, drawing cartoons that lambasted isolationism, racism, anti-Semitism, Hitler, Mussolini, the Japanese, and the conservative forces in American politics.

Take a look at this early version of Yertle the Turtle forming a "V" for victory during WWII which was included in Minear's book:


From Wikipedia