Funny story, my uncle was one of those up-in-arms posters about the "cancel culture" now seeping into innocent children's books and my older sister promptly schooled him in a Facebook comment battle, with my dad piling on on my sister's side. It was both highly entertaining and cringe-inducing.
Thank you for the summary -- I had seen the Dr. Seuss headlines but I didn't know all the details. It's cool to hear the librarian perspective. It's hilarious that no one on the planet had even heard of those books being retired before, myself included. Also, please continue to refer to the Grolier Club list exclusively as the Grolier Hundo in all academic writing from now on.
One thing I didn't note in the post that I probably should is that WorldCat now lists how many libraries are "committed to retain" a given book. I couldn't find an explanation on the phrase, which I had never seen before, but I assume it's related to the publisher retiring the books and libraries reporting to WorldCat that they will keep it. Newer articles report that some public and school libraries have already taken the books off their shelves, which is their prerogative! So it's interesting to see how many libraries have actively reported their willingness to keep the book, of which there were only a few. But librarians are also busy and probably not thinking about reporting this very minor holdings issue to WorldCat, so that number is not wholly reflective of holdings.
Funny story, my uncle was one of those up-in-arms posters about the "cancel culture" now seeping into innocent children's books and my older sister promptly schooled him in a Facebook comment battle, with my dad piling on on my sister's side. It was both highly entertaining and cringe-inducing.
Also, that does indeed look like Sam Waterson, one of my favorites in Newsroom.
Thank you for the summary -- I had seen the Dr. Seuss headlines but I didn't know all the details. It's cool to hear the librarian perspective. It's hilarious that no one on the planet had even heard of those books being retired before, myself included. Also, please continue to refer to the Grolier Club list exclusively as the Grolier Hundo in all academic writing from now on.
One thing I didn't note in the post that I probably should is that WorldCat now lists how many libraries are "committed to retain" a given book. I couldn't find an explanation on the phrase, which I had never seen before, but I assume it's related to the publisher retiring the books and libraries reporting to WorldCat that they will keep it. Newer articles report that some public and school libraries have already taken the books off their shelves, which is their prerogative! So it's interesting to see how many libraries have actively reported their willingness to keep the book, of which there were only a few. But librarians are also busy and probably not thinking about reporting this very minor holdings issue to WorldCat, so that number is not wholly reflective of holdings.
Grolier Hundo it shall forever be.