The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, published in 1971 is a story that chronicles the destruction that human society can have on the environment. The Lorax which is a mossy man like creature speaks up for the trees against the selfish and greedy Once-ler. The book is symbolic in that the Lorax represents the environment and the Once-ler is a representation of the industrialized society.

This book is considered one of his best by Dr. Seuss himself. However, it did not go over very well when it was first published. In fact, according to Wikipedia, it is still controversial today. In 1988 a small school district in California kept the book on a reading list for second graders, though some in the town claimed the book was unfair to the logging industry. Eventually several timber industry groups sponsored the creation of a book called The Truax. This story presented a "logging-friendly" perspective to a tree known as the Guardbark. This book, just as in The Lorax, presents an argument between two people. The logging industry representative expresses their efficiency and re-seeding efforts whereas the Guardbark, a personification of the environmentalist movement much as the Once-ler is for big business, refuses to listen and repeatedly causes problems.


The line "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie" was removed more than fourteen years after the story was published after two research associates from the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss about the clean-up of Lake Erie. The line, however, still remains in the DVD release of the special.

The Lorax is most definitely a didactic book. The dictionary defines this as "teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson." This book was written by Dr. Suess to clearly teach a lesson to society about protecting the environment. The personification and representation used throughout the story with the characters definitely presented an underlying theme. This theme is what made this book so controversial. Didactic literature can also be described as the author trying to teach the readers too much. In this case, I definitely do not think the author was trying to go over board or teach the public too much about this environmental issue. This book can be used in conjunction with the book sponsored by the logging company to distinguish the difference between using the Earth's resources wisely compared to being wasteful with the Earth's resources. It presents a very critical issue in the world today in a kid friendly manner that is easy for a child to understand.

There are still some didactic children's books published today, but I think the number has decreased dramatically over the years. When trying to brainstorm some recent children's book titles that use didactic literature, I kept coming to the conclusion that most of the books today that have underlying themes and lessons, do not have the same effect as Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. That may be the difference between his books such as this one that uses strong didactic literature and literature written today with underlying themes and lessons to be taught. It seems like books today take on a more "open-minded" less forceful side when trying to prove a point or teach a lesson to children. Dr. Seuss was an amazing author and one thing that made him such an amazing author was his ability to write books such as The Lorax and The Sneetches that taught important morals to children in a fun and humorous way.