California: Chopping Down Dr. Seuss

Chopping Down Dr. Seuss

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...

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