Sep 29 2017
A school librarian has declared that she would not like a selection of Dr Seuss classics here, there or anywhere, after refusing books donated by Melania Trump.
Trump had sent a collection of ten Seuss books, including The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, to schools across the country to mark National Read a Book Day. One school in each state, identified by the US department of education as having achieved high standards of excellence, received a package along with a letter signed by the first lady telling pupils that "the key to achieving your dreams begins with learning to read".
But Liz Phipps Soeiro, an award-winning school librarian at Cambridgeport elementary school in Massachusetts, turned down the offer, saying that her school has no need for the books. In a letter posted on the Horn Book site, she suggested that Trump should send the books to schools with fewer resources.
"Why not go out of your way to gift books to underfunded and underprivileged communities that continue to be marginalised and maligned by policies put in place by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos?" Phipps Soeiro asked. "Why not reflect on those 'high standards of excellence' beyond only what the numbers suggest? Secretary DeVos would do well to scaffold and lift schools instead of punishing them with closures and slashed budgets."
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