Do we label it racist as some people have? Nationalistic? A product of its environment? None of the above?.Do we view it through our own cultural lens, i.e., the presentist's approach?.do we take the literary historicist's approach? Do we read If I Ran the Zoo as a work that gives us the deets on a particular mindset of the 1950s i.e.

Here are some of the questions we feel are necessary to consider before reading If I Ran the Zoo to your children: Seuss may be children's literature, but it's still literature, so we need to come to terms with how we'll judge it as a piece of art.

Those are super basic definitions, we know, but they'll serve our point. Literary (or New) Historicism: when a present-day reader reads a text as a document of a particular era, hoping to understand the historical culture in which it was written. Literary Presentism: when a present-day reader imprints his ideals and values onto literary works of the past. How about we get some definitions up in here: Where does that leave us, the parents and teachers? Well, it leaves us in the precarious middle ground between historicism and presentism. To edit (i.e., censor) his works now would be equally as wrong. His works are of huge importance to the history of American literature. The only reason we can even print it today is because Seuss remains such a cultural icon. In contemporary society, such a picture or line just wouldn't fly. For us, one of the longer pauses came when we read the line 'ith helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant' attached to a picture with some very stereotypical Chinese people (10.2). While reading If I Ran the Zoo, you may have given yourself pause in a few spots. Warning: The following conversation contains a healthy dose of - isms and some - ists, specifically: presentism, historicism, racism, nationalism, and ismists (i.e., people who put too much stock in the - isms of others). (That's what imagination will do to you.) Why Should I Care? If I Ran the Zoo is the first time we heardĪnd what would Shmoop be without that neat term?īut it might as well have gone out to sea.īut McGrew would once again leave his markĪs a permanent fixture in the awesome Seuss Landing.Ĭome one, come all, it's too good to be true! To tell all the wee-ones what words rhyme with spoon. He moved right along from snarky cartoons Writing kids' books was really quite nifty. Some curvy and zany, but none should you fear.Īnd all for the zoo-goers' fun and delight,Īs they'd waddle and toddle past all the fun sights. He'd fill it with animals from far and from near Who thought to himself just what he'd do, Our modern day, kooky, and male Mother Goose. Is the name if our book, born in the brain

If i ran the zoo