American Notes CALIFORNIA

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.

-- Dr. Seuss

One funny thing happening in the rural Northern California town of Laytonville (pop. 1,000) revolves around one of Dr. Seuss's fantasies, The Lorax. The book has been required reading for second-graders for two years, but recently Judith Bailey requested that the Laytonville Unified School District downgrade it to optional. In The Lorax, it seems, a villain fells a forest to make garments called thneeds, and Dr. Seuss urges, "Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack." Bailey's husband Bill, it turns out, is a logging-equipment wholesaler. After his son read the book, says Bill, he "came home and labeled me a criminal." One pupil was said to have burst into tears when he saw his father pruning an apple tree, supposing he was trying to cut it down.

Bailey's request signaled a new skirmish in a battle for the minds of Laytonville's young. The townspeople (most draw their living from logging) began to buy ads in the Laytonville Observer to protest Seuss. Said one: "To teach our children that harvesting redwood trees is bad is not the education we need." With the second ad, says School Superintendent Brian Buckley, "we knew we had a problem." Last week a school-district committee voted 6 to 1 to resist censorship and keep The Lorax on the required list. Next week the school board gets a whack at the problem.