Serious Nonsense in Children’s Literature

         According to Linda Salem in her essay on Edward Gorey’s personal library, “Nonsense evokes discomfort and tension in audiences. Ridiculous, paradoxical, and unpredictable, it is at the same time meaningful and meaningless. It disturbs and tricks readers’ expectations” (232). The genre, then, encourages a reconsideration of the familiar by causing the reader to feel uneasy about the subject of the literature at hand. Dr. Seuss’s cautionary tale, The Butter Battle Book (1984), teaches its readers about tolerance and respect. John Hursh quotes Thomas Fensch: “While [Seuss’s] book received significant criticism when first published, it also received considerable praise. Writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak remarked: “Surprisingly, wonderfully, the case for total disarmament has been brilliantly made by our acknowledged master of nonsense, Dr. Seuss. . . . Only a genius of the ridiculous could possibly deal with the cosmic and lethal madness of the nuclear arms race” (n.p.). By subverting reasoning, the text cautions its readers against immorality.

While Dr. Seuss may have received a balance of criticism for his tolerance and demilitarization message in The Butter Battle Book, Michael Ian Black was accused of being an immature American for his childish nonsense book, A Child’s First Book of Trump (2016), which was meant for adults. Black’s rhymes coupled with Marc Rosenthal’s illustrations are reminiscent of Dr. Seuss’s nonsensical, artistic style. The text, according to the July 5, 2016 New York Times article, was a “. . . perfectly timely parody picture book intended for adults that would be hysterical if it wasn’t so true.” In genuine nonsense form, the piece cautions its readers against sightings of the “Americus Trumpus” (n.p.):

So what shall you do with a Trump running wild?

The answer is all up to you, my dear child.

Run away screaming? Or maybe you fight?

Reason and logic will only incite it.

You can cover your ears or run up a tree,

But the best thing to do is . . . (n.p.)

Adults (the intended audience), however, found the piece immature and indicative of sore “losers.” Kayla Welch commented on the New York Times article on November 7, 2017:

This book is the perfect example of why our country – namely the left – is so immature. I’m a libertarian, I voted as such, and yet I cannot understand this immaturity from people who have the right to vote.

Your side lost, so did mine. Grow up and please do not instill such immaturity in your child. . .

Another commenter, Jason Powell, responded on November 6, 2017 by saying “Written by the haters for the losers. Don’t read this to your kid if you want the child to be an achiever.” The comments these adults make point to several issues, but the question of the child audience is probably easier to consider in such a short discussion. How does one determine the criteria for a child audience? What are the criteria for children’s literature as a genre? Certainly, this text could entertain a child as well as Little Red Riding Hood.

Children know the difference between right and wrong. They know the difference between moral and immoral. In a CNN video published to YouTube on March 4, 2016, some confident children respond to news clips of the “Americus Trumpus.” When Trump complains that a million-dollar loan from his father was not very much, one young person responds mockingly: “It hasn’t been easy for me, but I’m filthy rich.” Another young person responds to Trumps comment about Rosie O’Donnell by saying, “If he’s going to be rude to ladies, he shouldn’t be a president.” Is it not possible, then, that children can handle discussions about complex topics in the literature written for them?

(KT)

Works Cited

Black, Michael Ian, and Marc Rosenthal. A Child's First Book of Trump. First ed., 2016.

"Children react to Donald Trump." https://youtu.be/3DcDdHdImM4. CNN. 4 March 2016.

Clark, Dorothy., and Linda C. Salem. Frontiers in American Children's Literature. 1st unabridged. ed., Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016.

Hursh, John. "Exploring Civil Society Through the Writings of Dr. Seuss: International Law, Armed Conflict, and the Construction of Otherness: A Critical Reading of Dr. Seuss's The Butter Battle Book and a Renewed Call for Global Citizenship." New York Law School Law Review, 58, 617 2013 / 2014. https://advance-lexis-com.libproxy.sdsu.edu/api/document?collection=analytical-materials&id=urn:contentItem:5CFF-JJ30-00CV-20HP-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed December 9, 2018.

Seuss. The Butter Battle Book. Random House, 1984.

Ten Things You Might Not Have Known About the One Known as Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel is the man behind the name Dr. Seuss. To this day his one-of-a-kind children’s books never get old. But the author that brought us books with silly words and lasting pictures for generations, may have a few surprising things up his sleeves.

1. Dr. Seuss’ first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was rejected twenty-seven times by numerous publishers before it was finally picked up and published by Vanguard Press in 1937. The difficulty for its publication was because the story was written in verse which was out of style at that time and highly criticized for its lack of moral messages for children.
2. The Voom that cleans up the pink stains that gets everywhere in Cat in the Hat Comes Back is theorized to be a representation of the uncontainable pollution and environmental hazard that could have occurred during the Cold War if nuclear weapons continued to be used. 
3. The Butter Battle Book was written cleverly as a way to allow audiences to consider the realist issue of using nuclear weapons. Random House Books published it in 1984, during the Cold War. It is theorized that Seuss left an open-ended ending in order to provoke a cognitive awareness of what could happen in a nuclear war without pushing a direct viewpoint. 
   
4. Dr. Seuss not only was a children’s book author and illustrator, but he was also a very active political cartoonist. He would often draw political cartoons that would speak volumes about American ideology, criticizing wars, race, and anti-Semitism.
5. Dr. Seuss’ first wife Helen Geisel committed suicide at the age of sixty-eight. The cause for this, she wrote in a letter to Seuss, was that she knew he was having an affair and could not bear life without him. 
6. Dr. Seuss identified himself with his Cat character from Cat in the Hat and drew a self-portrait of himself as the Cat in the Hat. This was published in the July 6, 1957 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
   
7. The Cat in The Hat was Dr. Seuss’ attempt at getting Dick and Jane off children’s shelves because it appeared children lacked an interest in reading them. Seuss wanted to give children something more enjoyable they could learn to read to.
8. Yertle the Turtle was based off of Hilter. Dr. Seuss had no problem with incorporating large grown-up ideology into children stories, like innuendos for what Hilter was doing in Europe in this well-known work. This was also the first ‘burp’ ever written into a children’s book. 
9. Theodor Seuss Geisel started his pen name Dr. Seuss after getting caught hosting a drinking party at Dartmouth College where he was the editor in chief to the college’s magazine. His tenure position was revoked and so in order to still contribute to the magazine he began signing his work by the name Dr. Seuss. 
10. Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated forty-four children’s books. 

Notes and References:

• http://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-dr-seuss
• http://mentalfloss.com/article/28843/10-stories-behind-dr-seuss-stories
• http://www.catinthehat.org/history.htm
• http://www.shmoop.com/cat-in-the-hat-comes-back/cold-war-allegory.html
• Nel, Philip. "Dada Knows Best: Growing up "Surreal" with Dr. Seuss." Children's Literature 27.1 (1999): 150-184.

Images:

• http://childrensbookalmanac.com/2011/03/and-to-think-that-i-saw-it-on-mulberry-street/
• http://www.drseussart.com/collections/
• http://bank.imgdumpr.com/index.php/random/real-political-cartoons-by-dr-seuss-during-wwii-30-pics/