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When is the last time you read your kids “McElligot's Pool”
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When is the last time you read your kids “McElligot's Pool”
Its our favorite book  
 0%  [ 1 ]
Today  
 0%  [ 1 ]
This week  
 1%  [ 2 ]
My kids are older, but we used to read it regularly  
 9%  [ 11 ]
This month  
 0%  [ 1 ]
Never  
 21%  [ 25 ]
What is "McElligot's Pool"?  
 64%  [ 74 ]
Total Votes : 115



amother
Rose


 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 10:16 am
SixOfWands wrote:
Would you care if a children's book referred to the K-kes, and included an image of a man with a long hooked nose and peyas, fondling money?

To the Inuit people, its the same thing.


Are the inuit people behind this push to cancel the book? Do they even care? Has anyone asked them?

Is every book with outdated names being canceled too? If not why not?
Do you feel that all old books should be canceled if they use outdated language?
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amother
Aubergine


 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 10:21 am
Are books by antisemitic authors also disappearing? Tintin. James and the Giant Peach.
Oh, Shakespeare and Dickens! That would be nice. A truly new world.
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 10:26 am
amother [ Rose ] wrote:
Are the inuit people behind this push to cancel the book? Do they even care? Has anyone asked them?

Is every book with outdated names being canceled too? If not why not?
Do you feel that all old books should be canceled if they use outdated language?


The publisher decided not to publish. That's their call.
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sky




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 10:33 am
SixOfWands wrote:
Would you care if a children's book referred to the K-kes, and included an image of a man with a long hooked nose and peyas, fondling money?

To the Inuit people, its the same thing.


A pic of a Jewish person wearing traditional clothing would be fine. Pics of Jewish ppl in their traditional housing would be fine. Pics of Jews in their traditional jobs would be fine. In fact pics of Jews lending money would be fine as Jews traditionally did lend money.

So how is a person dressed in winter clothing standing in front of an igloo holding a spear a racists image. Didn’t ppl living in those climates hunt and trap animals? What makes it a racist image in this book?

We are talking about a specific book in this thread with horribly racist images. I just wish someone could explain what makes the image so horribly racist.
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 10:35 am
amother [ Aubergine ] wrote:
Are books by antisemitic authors also disappearing? Tintin. James and the Giant Peach.
Oh, Shakespeare and Dickens! That would be nice. A truly new world.


Shakespeare and Dickens are in the public domain, so anyone can publish them who wants. The estates of Shakespeare and Dickens have no say. I don't think that the Merchant of Venice in particular should be taught in high school given the obvious antisemitism of the Shylock character.

I'd be happy to see a lot of Roald Dahl disappear. I certainly haven't shown my kids Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but they've seen James Bond movies, and even Willy Wonka.
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amother
Navy


 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 11:22 am
We do not want to go along with some power crazed control freak push to censor even with or under the guise of best intentions. Some years ago Obama was quoting Dr. Suess! He and Michelle had several Dr. Suess events at the White House promoting reading and values. Now suddenly somehow its verboten. Or "only 6 of them" --that is called testing the waters. Like twitter did. And others. Greenlight can only lead to worse R"L.
Have you seen what the same Library Association whatever it is called has offered in lieu? "Anti racist baby" and transgender books. Indoctrination much?
Nobody elected anyone doing this or the people pushing this.
This pushing of the envelope to see what "they" can get away with has to be stopped.
When WhatsApp received pushback to their change of policy they backed off.
No good can come from this craziness.
This is not happening in a vacuum.
Rather part and parcel of some agenda.
Since when is gender neutral some goal to attain? Since when is gender neutral considered somehow something to which to aspire?
Since when is androgynous an icon?
Many automated voice systems, models, fashion icons are moving toward the blurred androgynous voices, names, and looks.
Once might want to ask "why"?
And if nothing else the "fear" of being cancelled, offending someone's "sensibilities" and the like--even if some have only the best of intentions- is having the effect of dividing and shutting down open communication.
I am no fan of Dr Suess but make no mistake our communities and schools will be focussed on in an antisemitic or oblivious attitude of getting us up to speed and on board with this blurring of boundaries and "sensitivity" LGBT etc
We sure do not have to rush to run like lemmings off a cliff.
Easy to say "oh who cares six less popular books of Dr Suess"...but it is giving traction to censorship and more.
We can ask ourselves "qui bono" who benefits from this?
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enneamom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 11:35 am
What a shame. It looks like a great book.

https://seussblog.wordpress.co.....pool/

Quote:
SUMMARY:

Once again we are taken on a roller coaster ride of amazing imagination with Marco, from And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street. This time we see him sitting by McElligot’s Pool with fishing pole in hand. The pool is small and full of junk, but even after an adult farmer tells him he is being a fool, Marco continues to expect fish.

” ‘ Hmmm…’ answered Marco,
‘It may be you’re right.
I’ve been here three hours
Without one single bite.
There might be no fish…
‘But, again,
Well, there might!’ “

He explains that the pool might connect to an underground brook and under State Highway Two-Hundred-and-Three and under Sneeden’s Hotel and all the way out to the sea!

Then Marco starts to imagine all of the fantastical fish that could be out there on their way to McElligot’s Pool such as a fish with a checkboard belly or a fish made of strawberry jelly or even a sea horse (that actually has a horses head) and a fish that is partly a cow. Also, fish from the tropics and Eskimo fish and an eel with two heads.

The list goes on and on, including a fish with a terrible grouch (that looks an awful lot like the Grinch) and some acrobatic fish from the Circus that make a tower. Finally Marco announces:

“Oh, the sea is a so full of a number of fish,
If a fellow is patient, he might get his wish!”

And in a page that mimics the first page with the farmer looking on at Marco and the little pool Marco tells the farmer:

“And that’s why I think
That I’m not such a fool
When I sit here and fish
In McElligot’s Pool!”

ABOUT:

Once again we have a child taking something simple and mundane and turning it into something brilliant and beautiful with his imagination. And once again the adult considers it ridiculous and cannot see with the child’s creative mind.



This image is great, not only because it illustrates my point about the adult calling Marco a fool, but it also shows the animal observer. In the little tree by the pool there is a bird. This bird is our way into the story. It is seeing what we see and silently watching the action of the story. It is a pretty fun game to try and spot the animal observer that pops up in almost every single one of Seuss’ books.

HISTORY:

Another early trademark of Seuss is found in this book. Some biographers consider this one of his first “bestiary books” meaning a book in which Seuss creates made up beasts and gives them odd names and fantastical illustrations. In this book, like in There’s a Wocket in My Pocket, or One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Seuss goes through a menagerie of strange creatures. He has yet to give them unique names at this point, which he will do later in books like On Beyond Zebra and If I Ran the Zoo.



The dedication is to Seuss’ father and reads:

This book is dedicated to
T.R. Geisel of Springfield, Mass.,
The World’s Greatest Authority
on Blackfish, Fiddler Crabs and Deegel Trout

The “deegel trout” is a private joke referencing some of the Geisel’s more unsuccessful fishing trips when his father would purchase trout from the Deegel hatchery and pass them off as their catch.

The book was clearly inspired by childhood fishing trips with his father, but the brilliant color and beautiful illustrations were inspired by some of the scenery that Seuss and his wife, Helen, saw on their many trips abroad.



This is the only book that Seuss illustrated in watercolor. Sadly the budget only allowed alternate pairs of facing pages to be printed in their full brilliant color. Seuss decided after this book that children prefer flat bold colors, but he was also constantly worried that his art would look like a comic book.

Considering Seuss is my favorite artist, as well as children’s author, I find is very interest to look at these amazing paintings. Each one could stand alone in a frame on your wall and be considered art and yet here they all are, printed much smaller than their original size, and all crammed together in a children’s book. They are more reminiscent of the art you would find in The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss rather than the simple bold black outlined images you find in most of his books.

Here is an example of a page from McElligot’s Pool versus a piece in The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss:



(this is actually a more gray and black version of a page from McElligot’s Pool)



(from The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss)

They are both done with watercolor instead of the oil or acrylic that become the habit of his children’s book illustrations. They also lack the bold black outline that he was so afraid would resemble a comic book page. The colors are also much duller and the shading is more apparent.

He received a Junior Library Guild selection for the illustrations in this book and also landed his first Caldecott honor. The JLG website describes the Caldecott Medal as such:

“The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.”

_________________________

As usual there is more than one cover to be found. Originally the image at the top of this post was a dust jacket that covered the green cover below, but now the image on the dusk jacket is printed directly onto the cover with no actual dust jacket. The red spine book shown below is a very rare publication.



FAVORITE QUOTE:

“Oh, the sea is so full of a number of fish,
If a fellow is patient, he might get his wish!”

I am not always a patient person and this is just a nice little reminder that if you are a patient person you could get what you want. I love that he says “might” so many times throughout the book to show that it’s not necessarily guaranteed, but it is also not necessarily impossible.

FAVORITE IMAGE:

It is honestly hard for me to pick a favorite image from this book, because I really feel this book shows off his illustrations the best with such brilliant and eclectic color and imagination. But I think the image that shows that off the most is this one.



I also enjoy the New York Times statement that it is very characteristic of Dr. Seuss to have the worm “wrapping itself around a hook instead of being pierced by it.”

Thanks for reading,
Jack St. Rebor



Quote:


This is the only book that Seuss illustrated in watercolor
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amother
Navy


 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 3:29 pm
beautiful thanks for posting that illustration
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 3:39 pm
amother [ Navy ] wrote:
We do not want to go along with some power crazed control freak push to censor even with or under the guise of best intentions. Some years ago Obama was quoting Dr. Suess! He and Michelle had several Dr. Suess events at the White House promoting reading and values. Now suddenly somehow its verboten. Or "only 6 of them" --that is called testing the waters. Like twitter did. And others. Greenlight can only lead to worse R"L.


Yeah. Right. The Seuss Estate is going to kill its Cash Cow by deciding to stop publishing all of his books.

You'd have to be a special kind of foolish to believe such a thing.
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Amelia Bedelia




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 3:41 pm
SixOfWands wrote:
In that book, yes, that's the term, along with a rather racist stereotyped image.

The word is now considered to be offensive by many people.

As I said, if people actually bought this book, they would probably revise it. And maybe they will in the future. But its just not very good. None of the books they're halting publication of are/

Never heard of this particular title, but some of the others are very good. I really liked And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. I definitely think it's a much more wholesome storyline than The Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham.


Last edited by Amelia Bedelia on Thu, Mar 04 2021, 3:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
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SixOfWands




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 3:42 pm
enneamom wrote:
What a shame. It looks like a great book.



And one that you never bothered to purchase or read when it was widely available.
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youngishbear




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 3:42 pm
amother [ Navy ] wrote:
We do not want to go along with some power crazed control freak push to censor even with or under the guise of best intentions. Some years ago Obama was quoting Dr. Suess! He and Michelle had several Dr. Suess events at the White House promoting reading and values. Now suddenly somehow its verboten. Or "only 6 of them" --that is called testing the waters. Like twitter did. And others. Greenlight can only lead to worse R"L.
Have you seen what the same Library Association whatever it is called has offered in lieu? "Anti racist baby" and transgender books. Indoctrination much?
Nobody elected anyone doing this or the people pushing this.
This pushing of the envelope to see what "they" can get away with has to be stopped.
When WhatsApp received pushback to their change of policy they backed off.
No good can come from this craziness.
This is not happening in a vacuum.
Rather part and parcel of some agenda.
Since when is gender neutral some goal to attain? Since when is gender neutral considered somehow something to which to aspire?
Since when is androgynous an icon?
Many automated voice systems, models, fashion icons are moving toward the blurred androgynous voices, names, and looks.
Once might want to ask "why"?
And if nothing else the "fear" of being cancelled, offending someone's "sensibilities" and the like--even if some have only the best of intentions- is having the effect of dividing and shutting down open communication.
I am no fan of Dr Suess but make no mistake our communities and schools will be focussed on in an antisemitism or oblivious attitude of getting us up to speed and on board with this blurring of boundaries and "sensitivity" LGBT etc
We sure do not have to rush to run like lemmings off a cliff.
Easy to say "oh who cares six less popular books of Dr Suess"...but it is giving traction to censorship and more.
We can ask ourselves "qui bono" who benefits from this?


This was an economic decision by a company. They decided that the books no longer reflect the author's legacy the way they believe he would have wanted.

They are exercising their rights to free speech, or the right to remain silent, or the right to choose what to print and what not to print. Ergo, no censorship. There is no government entity involved in this decision.

The NYPL has already announced that they will keep the books in circulation.

And about that WhatsApp thing... The rules are scheduled to go into effect soon. The hullabaloo did not achieve what you think it achieved.
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Classicookie




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 3:45 pm
I read a lot of Dr Seuss books but I've actually never read this one. But I love so I think I saw it on mulberry Street and I'm sad about that one but I think we own it so that's that.
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amother
Scarlet


 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 4:01 pm
This one, we've read a few times. Mulberry Street and If I Ran the Zoo, we read more often. And I didn't know "Eskimo" was a problem until just now, likely because the subject never came up. And I genuinely don't get the problem with the illustration; are there subtleties I'm not seeing?

I'm curious, Six, what your view is on books that are reflections of their times, especially those trying to teach lessons we still value but in ways that are very different from what we tend to do now. I know this is a little kids' book example of this, but what's your perspective on Huck Finn, for example? Genuinely want to know.
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amother
Gold


 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 4:04 pm
Eskimo is only a problem in Alaska and Canada. There are other groups that have no problem with the term Eskimo. So it’s only a slur sometimes.

News articles will still refer to groups as Eskimo depending on where they live.
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sky




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 4:08 pm
SixOfWands wrote:
And one that you never bothered to purchase or read when it was widely available.


So why not say it’s going out of print bec it’s not popular. I don’t get the need to make a big announcement and say it’s racist. .
And say the images and terms are super racist when they just aren’t.

No one on this thread had found that super racist image that was mentioned earlier.

I think calling the book racist and using that for stopping to print it really cheapens the overall charges of racism in the world. Like crying wolf.
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octopus




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 4:09 pm
What was wrong with the one on mulberry street? I own that one somewhere. Can't spend time digging it out.
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amother
Gold


 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 4:14 pm
octopus wrote:
What was wrong with the one on mulberry street? I own that one somewhere. Can't spend time digging it out.


From an article “
The book was selected to be pulled from publication because it has outdated portrayals of Asian people. These include descriptions of a character described as Chinese as having slanted eyes, eating bowls of rice, and wearing conical hats.

It also captions an illustration of a man as “a Chinese man who eats with sticks.” The book, in particular this section, was actually altered in 1978 by Dr. Seuss himself.

"I had a gentleman with a pigtail. I colored him yellow and called him a 'Chinaman.' That's the way things were 50 years ago," he once explained. "In later editions, I refer to him as a 'Chinese man.' I have taken the color out of the gentleman and removed the pigtail and now he looks like an Irishman."
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Amelia Bedelia




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 4:14 pm
octopus wrote:
What was wrong with the one on mulberry street? I own that one somewhere. Can't spend time digging it out.


https://apnews.com/article/dr-.....74513
In “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” an Asian person is portrayed wearing a conical hat, holding chopsticks, and eating from a bowl. “If I Ran the Zoo” includes a drawing of two bare-footed African men wearing what appear to be grass skirts with their hair tied above their heads.

Don't ask me why those illustrations can't be removed What
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enneamom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Mar 04 2021, 7:39 pm
SixOfWands wrote:
And one that you never bothered to purchase or read when it was widely available.

There are many amazing books that I've yet to discover.

Apparently, there are now six less of them. Including a book that won Dr. Seuss his first Caldecott honor, and the only title he ever illustrated in watercolor. You should check out the illustrations; they are works of art.

Where will the state of education in the country be left, after the liberals are done with their snipping and pruning? Will they ever be done?
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