Read Across America Unit Study

Most educators celebrate Read Across America week.

Launched in 1998 by the National Education Association (NEA) and guided by a committee of educators, NEA’s Read Across America is the nation’s largest celebration of reading. This year-round program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources that are about everyone, for everyone.

Many individuals and organizations have stepped away from focusing on Dr. Seuss’s birthday for Read Across America week.

We celebrate diverse authors and subjects. Many teachers and parents eschew Seuss for other, better, more diverse choices.

While my kids were little, I never knew or considered Dr. Seuss books as anything but cute rhymes.

I have an entire bookshelf full of Dr. Seuss books and I’m so upset about it.

Instead of overusing and misusing the word “cancel” why can’t we just say “criticize” and “critical”? Don’t we want to model and teach critical thinking and literary analysis?

Now that I know better, I do better.

Do you know the Truth about Seuss?

Racism and Dr. Seuss:

It is NOT “cancel culture.” It is facing consequences.

So many Dr. Seuss stories are iconic – memorable traditions we read and watch every year.

I think as white people, we tend to overlook subtle, covert, and even overt racism and make excuses for the writer or artist. We wave it away as “a sign of the times” or “how it was back then.”

This is laziness.

It’s important we reevaluate what we expose our kids to and if we continue to read and watch these stories, we do so critically and with more awareness and discuss these issues with our kids. We owe it to them.