Their research found that the Cat’s appearance was allegedly ‘inspired by blackface performance, racist images in popular culture, and actual African Americans’ ( Was the Cat in the Hat Black?: Exploring Dr. These books include The Cat in the Hat The Cat in the Hat Comes Back The Sneetches and Horton Hears a Who!’ Seuss's most iconic books ‘feature animal or non-human characters that transmit Orientalist, anti-Black, and White supremacist messaging through allegories and symbolism. Seuss's Children's Booksconcludes that some of Dr. Their paper, The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti- Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr.

Those claims were explored earlier this year in a study published in Research on Diversity in Youth Literature by Katie Ishizuka and Ramon Stephens.

But Seuss's work is being seen as increasingly problematic, with critics labelling it as racist. It's great to read aloud with its humour, drama, suspense and natural cadence - so I often perform it when I visit schools. His iconic The Cat in the Hat is ‘lots of good fun that is funny’, and is Seuss's second best-selling book of all time (and the ninth best-selling children’s book of all time - Publishers Weekly). Seuss: to create ‘a book children can't put down.’ĭr. The publisher’s brief to Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. The Cat in the Hat was commissioned by Houghton Mifflin as a direct response to Life magazine’s report on illiteracy among school children, which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring.

The cat in the hat 1957