A day after the announcement that six books by Dr. Seuss would no longer be published, sales of his books have increased.
On Tuesday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would stop producing “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.” Other books like “The Cat and the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham” will not be impacted by the decision. The six books that were pulled had racist and insensitive imagery, USA Today reported.
“These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” the company told The Associated Press.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises said the move came after an internal review, Rolling Stone reported.
But the removal of those six books has apparently increased the demand for the dozens of other titles that will still be published.
“The Cat in the Hat,” “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” and “Green Eggs and Ham” were among the nine of the Top 10 best sellers for Amazon and Barnes and Noble Thursday morning, according to USA Today.
Not only did the six books that will no longer be produced sell out on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but they are being resold on sites like eBay for a premium price, Rolling Stone reported.
Lark Grey Dimond-Cates, Seuss’s stepdaughter, told the New York Post there “wasn’t a racist bone in that man’s body” but agreed that pulling the books, which she found out about on Monday, was the wise choice “in this day and age.”
Seuss, born Theodor Seuss Geisel, died in 1991, but he is still one of the top highest-paid dead celebrities. In 2020 his estate earned $33 million before taxes, trailing only Michael Jackson in Forbes’ list.