Cathy Young on topic. Both sides have a point but... https://theweek.com/articles/969971/why-dr-seuss-cancellation-chilling

Fair enough. People can disagree in good faith on these matters.

Nevertheless, that's what I believe about literature!

Lol, in my opinion, writers enter, through the act of publishing, into a moral contract with their readership, one that is violated by the act of removing their own work from circulation. The reader is not a mere 'consumer'; the reader co-creates the text. That's just my opinion as a writer and a reader. I understand you disagree with my opinion. OK. I'm not sure what else there is to discuss. I 100% back your right to disagree and believe differently. No problem. It's all ok. One random woman's (my) beliefs about art don't really require changing. I just see things my way.

That's fine. We can disagree. I am not your publisher forcing you to publish books you now disavow, so my opinion has no effect on you. It's just a discussion.

Once it's in the public arena, and not in your drawer, there's a moral contract and relationship between you and the reader. It's breaking that contract, imo, to disappear one's own work. Write more work, better work. Develop your moral contract with your readers through the trajectory of your work. I think the publisher has the right to make a profit, and not reprint on that basis. I support the publisher of the Sues books to make a business decision re their publication.

I'd be extremely surprised if any of the problematic titles are routinely read aloud in schools or are being purchased for school libraries. I'd be willing to bet the titles in question have made the estate pennies in the last decade. Let them go OOP because there's low reader demand for the minor Suess books. None of them have made any shelves I've ever seen (and I've worked in a bookshop on and off over the last 15 years, and checked our school library yesterday AND had a 5 year old Suess fan at one stage).

I think the book should go OOP if there is no demand, or if the profit in a reprint isn't there. To reprint or not to reprint is a reader-publisher relationship. No, I don't believe authors should be able to withdraw books on the basis they no longer like their own books, or feel their own books are now bad PR. I do believe authors should be able to write and publish better books for better PR and personal conscience. The Suess estate could, for example, commission, publish and promote 4 new inclusive readers in the Suess (text) style. They could commission black writers and

Oh, for goodness sake. Seriously? Cat in a Hat is now about white children engaging in white supremacist entertainment? Please. Luckily here we didn't raise our children on black and white minstrelsy, so I think their self concept as non-white children survived some nonsense verse.

The Cat in the Hat is not racist. It could, perhaps, be withdrawn for causing children to lie to their mother about what they get up to home alone, but that's it.

This is my ex's history (Anglo Indian). He's a novelist. He could deny himself the canon b/c colonization. But why should he? The canon is his as much as anyone's. It's not like he can't have Melville because he's brown. As a woman, just about everything I read prior to 1960 and after 2010 contains the most outrageous stereotyping of women - so what?! I'm not going to deprive myself of a single scrap of art because of it. I just finished a novel which moved me greatly (Earth Abides) and which contained outrageous sex stereotyping, written in the 50's, I think. It's a dystopia, and I

It's pretty funny. My kids know it better than the real song.

So true. I'm forever grateful I could use a birth center for all mine.

Free births went way up in the UK, because pregnant women were denied midwife care and an attendee home birth due to Covid. Added to the fear of getting Covid in hospital, and being left one in hospital after the birth (no partners could stay), it makes sense some decided to free birth who otherwise wouldn't have.