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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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100289
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10028900.016
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1990-09-18
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NATION, Page 21American NotesCALIFORNIAChopping Down Dr. Seuss
From there to here, from here to there, funny things are
everywhere.
-- Dr. Seuss
One funny thing happening in the rural Northern California town
of Laytonville (pop. 1,000) revolves around one of Dr. Seuss's
fantasies, The Lorax. The book has been required reading for
second-graders for two years, but recently Judith Bailey requested
that the Laytonville Unified School District downgrade it to
optional. In The Lorax, it seems, a villain fells a forest to make
garments called thneeds, and Dr. Seuss urges, "Grow a forest.
Protect it from axes that hack." Bailey's husband Bill, it turns
out, is a logging-equipment wholesaler. After his son read the
book, says Bill, he "came home and labeled me a criminal." One
pupil was said to have burst into tears when he saw his father
pruning an apple tree, supposing he was trying to cut it down.
Bailey's request signaled a new skirmish in a battle for the
minds of Laytonville's young. The townspeople (most draw their
living from logging) began to buy ads in the Laytonville Observer
to protest Seuss. Said one: "To teach our children that harvesting
redwood trees is bad is not the education we need." With the second
ad, says School Superintendent Brian Buckley, "we knew we had a
problem." Last week a school-district committee voted 6 to 1 to
resist censorship and keep The Lorax on the required list. Next
week the school board gets a whack at the problem.