The news that six books by Dr. Seuss are being pulled from publication brought predictably negative responses in my social media feed:

“I resent book banning!” “Who’s allowing this Counterculture to make all these preposterous decisions?” “Sounds like 1930s Nazi Germany.”

I can appreciate the sentiment, to an extent. Dr. Seuss? Beloved creator of the Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2, Cindy Lou Who and the (ultimately) delightful Grinch, too? A victim of cancel culture?

It sounded like one of those half-baked decisions by overzealous, “woke” guardians of the public weal.

The truth is not that simple. Nor is this sort of thing particularly new.

Dr. Seuss and I go way back. The first book I recall getting from my hometown library was “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” which was his first, written in 1937.

It’s one of the books going out of print, along with “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.”

Dr. Seuss Enterprises made the decision to stop publishing them last year, “working with a panel of experts, including educators,” according to a recent statement announcing the decision. “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

The decision was no doubt made easier by the fact that the six books were not chart-toppers. NPD BookScan, which tracks sales, said “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” sold more than 513,000 copies last year, but “Mulberry Street” sold 5,000 or so. The others, presumably less.

The Nashville Public Library doesn’t use any Seuss books in its reading programs, not the six at issue or any of the other 60-plus Seuss titles, says Ed Brown, a library spokesman.

“While many of his books remain popular with our customers, we see many other children’s authors being read very widely, as well,” he says.

The six books will not be pulled from library circulation, Brown adds.

“One of the core beliefs of our library is intellectual freedom,” he explains. “We endorse the principles stated in the Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read Statement of the American Library Association. Based on these tenets, we’re opposed to censorship in any form.”

The Seuss books in question have in the past prompted some concerns from library customers, Brown says, as have the “Little House on the Prairie” series, “The Adventures of Tintin” and “The Thanksgiving Story.”

Patronizing – or worse – treatments of racial minorities are the common complaint.

“While we didn’t remove these books from our collections,” Brown says, “we created a series of blog posts called Tackling Racism in Children’s Books to help parents and caregivers have culturally conscious conversations with their children about these titles and others where they might encounter potentially offensive content.”

The Seuss episode calls to mind efforts over the years by school boards and such to ban the classics “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In an effort to police language and soothe the sensitive, the critics turn a blind eye to outstanding literary and artistic merit.

The issue is different for the six Seuss works. For starters, no public body is involved, nor is anything being banned. Also, what’s at issue are mostly Seuss’s drawings, not his catchy rhymes.

Being many decades removed from “Mulberry Street” and completely unfamiliar with the other works, I looked online at the images that have come under fire. Look for yourself: Some are merely cringe-worthy; others are blatantly racist.

Apparently, simply removing them was either not considered or rejected. (Minor tweaks to one of the drawings were made years ago, along with changing the description from a “Chinaman” to a “Chinese man.”)

That kind of editing has long been employed against certain older cartoons deemed objectionable for one reason or another. Sometimes the complaint is racist images, sometimes violence.

Efforts to remove violence can be particularly ham-handed and jarring:

A 1952 Sylvester and Tweety cartoon was altered from 1994 to 2000 to eliminate a scene in which Sylvester’s fur was on fire, according to The Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Guide online. Similar cuts were made to a 1949 Road Runner cartoon in which Wile E. Coyote tried to explode the Road Runner with dynamite.

I could go on. There are lots.

Even if we agree that some lines should be drawn – and not everyone does – the issue becomes where to draw them. Censoring cartoonish mayhem seems silly indeed, but there is a third rail. While Dr. Seuss’ imagination created wonders:

When he poked fun at race he did not fare so well.

Now some books from his pen they will no longer sell.

He would have been fine if he’d stuck with the Cat.

That’s the lesson to learn. Nothing hard about that.

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville. He can be reached at [email protected]