The GayBC's Are In, Dr. Sss is Out

Contents:

• THE GAY HISTORY OF AMERI’S CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOKS
• ‘THE CAT THE HAT’: A QUEER READGDR. SSS’ MASTERPIECE IS EVEN WEIRR THAN SEEMSJONATHAN POLETTI·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ???????????·6 M READ·MAR 4, 2021--3SHAREIN THE LATE 1950S, A OBSSED WH NFORMY, A STORY ABOUT A MAGIL TERSEXUAL FELE WHO DO BIZARRE THGS WAS A MONSTER H.I’M THKG ABOUT THE CAT THE HAT, THE NOW-CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOK, STCK BY HOW ODD, HOW UNTER-CULTURAL SEEMS TO BE. AND THEN I THK ABOUT GENR—AND SEARCH FOR MENTARY ON THAT SUBJECT ANY OF DR. SSS’ WORK, FDG ALMOST NONE.THEODOR SSS GEISEL 1957 (LIBRARY OF CONGRS)HE’D SEEMED TO HAVE NO FEMALE CHARACTERS.THAT WAS THE BASIC ‘READ’ ON DR. SSS. HE’D WRTEN A NARRATIVE WORLD WHOUT WOMEN .DURG HIS LIFETIME, A FEMIST WRER BROUGHT TO THE ARTIST TED GEISEL’S ATTENTN. HE REPLIED THAT HE MOSTLY DREW ANIMALS — AND “IF SHE N INTIFY THEIR SEX, I’LL REMEMBER HER MY WILL.”IT MIGHT NOT BE SAID THERE WERE NO THEM OF GENR, HOWEVER. I BROWSE HIS WORK, AND MANY OF THE TS ARE CLEARLY IMAGED AS PRISSY GAY MEN. LOOK AT THIS QUEER LTLE FIGURE I CAN LICK 30 TIGERS TODAY (1969):IT MIGHT SEEM THAT DR. SSS HAD SMUGGLED MANY UNUALLY GENRED FIGUR TO THE DOMANT CULTURE—UNR THE VER OF FUN, QUIRKY ANIMAL STORI.BUT HIS MASTERPIECE WAS THE CAT THE HAT, HIS 1957 BOOK THAT BROUGHT A STRANGE FELE TO THE WORLD.HOW DID THE BOOK E ABOUT?
• READG THE GRCH AS GAY TO PISS OFF DR. SSS
• THE GAYBC'S ARE IN, DR. SSS IS OUT

THE GAY HISTORY OF AMERI’S CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOKS

” It’s about a t who liv wh two gay men; you n tell by the book, then jt published, was evintly meant to help normalize already borgly normal fai like ours by g the tradnal substutn of animals for people orr to illtrate how much fun havg gay dads n be.

) And if you stopped to thk about , “Lucy” seemed to argue that the gay dads, however full of fun, were aquate: When the pa chips were down, they need rcug, too. Among gay-themed children’s stori, they preferred “Frog and Toad.

‘THE CAT THE HAT’: A QUEER READGDR. SSS’ MASTERPIECE IS EVEN WEIRR THAN SEEMSJONATHAN POLETTI·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ???????????·6 M READ·MAR 4, 2021--3SHAREIN THE LATE 1950S, A OBSSED WH NFORMY, A STORY ABOUT A MAGIL TERSEXUAL FELE WHO DO BIZARRE THGS WAS A MONSTER H.I’M THKG ABOUT THE CAT THE HAT, THE NOW-CLASSIC CHILDREN’S BOOK, STCK BY HOW ODD, HOW UNTER-CULTURAL SEEMS TO BE. AND THEN I THK ABOUT GENR—AND SEARCH FOR MENTARY ON THAT SUBJECT ANY OF DR. SSS’ WORK, FDG ALMOST NONE.THEODOR SSS GEISEL 1957 (LIBRARY OF CONGRS)HE’D SEEMED TO HAVE NO FEMALE CHARACTERS.THAT WAS THE BASIC ‘READ’ ON DR. SSS. HE’D WRTEN A NARRATIVE WORLD WHOUT WOMEN .DURG HIS LIFETIME, A FEMIST WRER BROUGHT TO THE ARTIST TED GEISEL’S ATTENTN. HE REPLIED THAT HE MOSTLY DREW ANIMALS — AND “IF SHE N INTIFY THEIR SEX, I’LL REMEMBER HER MY WILL.”IT MIGHT NOT BE SAID THERE WERE NO THEM OF GENR, HOWEVER. I BROWSE HIS WORK, AND MANY OF THE TS ARE CLEARLY IMAGED AS PRISSY GAY MEN. LOOK AT THIS QUEER LTLE FIGURE I CAN LICK 30 TIGERS TODAY (1969):IT MIGHT SEEM THAT DR. SSS HAD SMUGGLED MANY UNUALLY GENRED FIGUR TO THE DOMANT CULTURE—UNR THE VER OF FUN, QUIRKY ANIMAL STORI.BUT HIS MASTERPIECE WAS THE CAT THE HAT, HIS 1957 BOOK THAT BROUGHT A STRANGE FELE TO THE WORLD.HOW DID THE BOOK E ABOUT?

” No, I know: “Frog and Toad” — a seri of four picture books by Arnold Lobel, origally published between 1970 and 1979 — is not gay-themed. But ’s not not gay-themed eher. They get to scrap separately but get out of them together, which is not a bad fn of left: Jam Marshall, “Gee and Martha, ” urty of Houghton Miffl Harurt; Arnold Lobel, “Frog and Toad are Friends” © 1970 Arnold Lobel, ed by permissn of HarperColls Publishers; Jam Marshall, “Miss Nelson is Missg!, ” urty of Houghton Miffl HarurtOur boys loved the stori, as did we — but not bee Lobel was gay.

They ntued to make books together for years: a Frog and Toad tale if ever there was, Lobel’s gayns, when I learned of much later, seemed like somethg I should have known all along; lurked everywhere his words and pictur. Which is not to say Frog and Toad uld turn you gay. They suggted, no ls to as gay parents than to our sons wh their polar personali, how separatens uld bee solidary and oddns acmodatn.

READG THE GRCH AS GAY TO PISS OFF DR. SSS

However d the books’ gay ntent, was no surprise once d. It’s also that all of their thors were gay. As if that weren’t enough, he referred to the gay muny, who took him as one of their own whether he liked or not, as “l boys.

Sss and Shel Silverste were prumably heterosexual, no matter that Silverste glowered om the photos on his book jackets like a hot Scff by permissn of HarperColls, urty of Children’s Lerature Collectn, UMNBut remas the se that the thors of many of the most succsful and fluential works of children’s lerature the middle years of the last century — works that were formative for baby boomers, Gen-Xers, lennials and beyond — were gay. At a time when those wrers wouldn’t dare (as Paola recently told me) walk hand hand wh a lover, when only a straight children’s thor like Silverste uld get away wh publishg a story Playboy about life the homophile En that is Fire Island P, they won Caltt and Newbery Medals for books that, whout ever directly speakg their tth, sent out a secret language that was somehow accsible to those who need to receive .

THE GAYBC'S ARE IN, DR. SSS IS OUT

The works forted the proto-gay but also tenrized the proto-straight a way no other lerature ABOUT WHAT was happeng unr the ver of children’s lerature. The msage: Leave me alone wh my imagatn and I’ll be mt have lighted Sendak to know that, spe the ocsnal censorship kerfuffle, an Ameri terrified of gay fluence on children was vourg his ovre as fast as he uld whip up. ) While the Save Our Children csar Ana Bryant and the Foc on the Fay attack dog Jam Dobson were huntg down homosexual propaganda schools and stateho, Sendak and the others were hidg the one place no one bothered to look: on their children’s night this wasn’t a liberate strategy of subversn, wasn’t a cince eher.

Photos by Joshua Stt; Tomie Paola, “Oliver Button is a Sissy, ” urty of Houghton Miffl Harurt But wrg om a gay perspective for the unr-12 set was tricky. The first young adult novel to pict a homosexual enunter — John Donovan’s “I’ll Get There.

It Better Be Worth the Trip” — did not e out until 1969; the first picture book to get near the word “gay” was Paola’s “Oliver Button Is a Sissy, ” 1979. Roughly enpassg the first 10 years of the morn gay rights movement, the books (and their thors) uld only dream of a world which “Lucy Go to the Country, ” by a male uple who announce themselv as such on the flap, would seem monplace, or which a picture book lled “Stonewall: A Buildg. (“If beme known you were gay, you’d have a big red ‘G’ on your cht, ” Paola rells, “and schools wouldn’t buy your books anymore.