Let's take a closer look at that Cambridge, Massachusetts elementary school librarian who rejected the gift of Dr. Seuss books from Melania Trump.

You've seen the story, I'm sure. Here's Vanity Fair: "An Elementary School Librarian Doesn’t Want Dr. Seuss Books from Melania Trump/She wrote that Seuss is 'a bit of a cliché, a tired and worn ambassador for children’s literature.'" I've seen some abuse of this woman, Liz Phipps Soeiro, and here's something, in particular, that set me off:

Hello, Central Casting? I need a Rosa Kleb-style totalitarian children's reeducation camp schoolmarm pic.twitter.com/d8K5kGmwOc

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 29, 2017

I want to say Phipps Soeiro looks great. This is a fabulous, beautiful librarian look, and if this says Rosa Klebb to you, I guess you're just not into the glory of librarians. I love the scarf, the bright-lipstick/no-eye-makeup look, the pinned-back hair, the glasses. It's utterly charming, well constructed and a lot of fun, like a character in a children's book. Perfection.

Now, let's read her words on the occasion of her school's getting selected — as one school in each state is selected — to receive a set of Dr. Seuss books:

Thank you for the ten Dr. Seuss titles that you sent my school library in recognition of this year’s National Read a Book Day. (Sent second-day air, no less! That must have been expensive.) I’m proud that you recognized my school as something special. It truly is. 

That's a friendly, nice thanks.

Our beautiful and diverse student body is made up of children from all over the world; from different socioeconomic statuses; with a spectrum of gender expressions and identities; with a range of abilities; and of varied racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds.

She makes it clear what kind of a school this is, making it all the more interesting that this is the school Melania Trump chose to recognize.  

According to the White House website, you selected one school per state by “working with the Department of Education to identify schools with programs that have achieved high standards of excellence, recognized by State and National awards and Blue Ribbon Awards…” Each of those carefully vetted schools received ten books: Seuss-isms!; Because a Little Bug Went KaChoo; What Pet Should I Get?; The Cat in the Hat; I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!; One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; The Foot Book; Wacky Wednesday; Green Eggs and Ham; and Oh, the Places You’ll Go!.

My students were interested in reading your enclosed letter and impressed with the beautiful bookplates with your name and the indelible White House stamp...

The gift is acknowledged, and we can see that the children were able to enjoy the recognition that their school received.

... however, we will not be keeping the titles for our collection. 

That's the kicker.

I’d like to respectfully offer my explanation.

Respectfully. 

My school and my library are indeed award-winning. I work in a district that has plenty of resources, which contributes directly to “excellence.” Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an amazing city with robust social programming, a responsive city government, free all-day kindergarten, and well-paid teachers (relatively speaking — many of us can’t afford to live in the city in which we teach). My students have access to a school library with over nine thousand volumes and a librarian with a graduate degree in library science. Multiple studies show that schools with professionally staffed libraries improve student performance. The American Association of School Librarians has a great infographic on these findings. Many schools around the state and country can’t compete.

Yearly per-pupil spending in Cambridge is well over $20,000; our city’s values are such that given a HUGE range in the socioeconomic status of our residents, we believe that each and every child deserves the best free education possible and are working hard to make that a reality (most classrooms maintain a 60/40 split between free/reduced lunch and paid lunch). This offers our Title I school and the district a lot of privilege and room for programming and pedagogy to foster “high standards of excellence.” Even so, we still struggle to close the achievement gap, retain teachers of color, and dismantle the systemic white supremacy in our institution. But hell, we test well! And in the end, it appears that data — and not children — are what matters.

The school is good because great resources have been invested in education in this place.

Meanwhile, school libraries around the country are being shuttered. Cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit are suffering through expansion, privatization, and school “choice” with no interest in outcomes of children, their families, their teachers, and their schools. Are those kids any less deserving of books simply because of circumstances beyond their control? 

Why give gifts to those who have already received so much? The recognition that's embodied in the gift seems to presume that all the children and teachers started with the same quality of schools, and these students did more with what they had. But that's not true.

Why not go out of your way to gift books to underfunded and underprivileged communities that continue to be marginalized and maligned by policies put in place by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos? 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.

Phipps Soeiro wants better schools for all children. If her school is the great example that's getting recognition, why not do more to help other schools be like this school, not act as if giving a few books to this school would help inspire kids and teachers at bad schools to compete and achieve more? It's a policy argument. Phipps Soeiro is using the act of declining the gift to draw attention to her disagreement with the administration's education policy.

So, my school doesn’t have a NEED for these books. And then there’s the matter of the books themselves. 

Now, we get to the part of the letter that's getting the most attention. The attack (or seeming attack) on Dr. Seuss:

You may not be aware of this, but Dr. Seuss is a bit of a cliché, a tired and worn ambassador for children’s literature. As First Lady of the United States, you have an incredible platform with world-class resources at your fingertips. Just down the street you have access to a phenomenal children’s librarian: Dr. Carla Hayden, the current Librarian of Congress. I have no doubt Dr. Hayden would have given you some stellar recommendations.

Instead of highlighting books that we all know, you could have chosen some newer, more obscure writers and brought attention and honor to them.  

Another fact that many people are unaware of is that Dr. Seuss’s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes. Open one of his books (If I Ran a Zoo or And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example), and you’ll see the racist mockery in his art. Grace Hwang Lynch’s School Library Journal article, “Is the Cat in the Hat Racist? Read Across America Shifts Away from Dr. Seuss and Toward Diverse Books,” reports on Katie Ishizuka’s work analyzing the minstrel characteristics and trope nature of Seuss’s characters. Scholar Philip Nel’s new book, Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books, further explores and shines a spotlight on the systemic racism and oppression in education and literature.

Certainly, children's literature deserves analysis. It conveys values. It shapes young minds. Whether a particular book is actually racist (in some blatant or subtle ways) is a matter we will disagree about, but it's certainly a great topic of conversation, and it's a fine thing for Phipps Soeiro to use her moment in the spotlight to get the conversation started. I've had my suspicions about the Cat in the Hat myself (mostly that he seems to represent a child molester, bringing his special kind of fun to the house when the mother is away and successfully covering his traces and getting the kids to keep it all secret).

I am honored that you recognized my students and our school. 

Back to the niceness of paragraph #1. After a brief stimulation to conversation about education policy and the meaning in children's books, we're coming in for a landing.

I can think of no better gift for children than books; it was a wonderful gesture, if one that could have been better thought out. Books can be a powerful way to learn about and experience the world around us; they help build empathy and understanding. 

All very nice. The reservation about the books is repeated in a gentle, modest way.  

In return...

She's giving a gift.

... I’m attaching a list of ten books...

Her gift is a list.

... (it’s the librarian in me) that I hope will offer you a window into the lives of the many children affected by the policies of your husband’s administration. You and your husband have a direct impact on these children’s lives. Please make time to learn about and value them. I hope you share these books with your family and with kids around the country. And I encourage you to reach out to your local librarian for more recommendations.

Beautifully written. Delightful. What are the books? Here's the "Dear Mrs. Trump" booklist. What a wonderful response!

Dear Mrs. Trump — this is my advice to Melania — you should invite Liz Phipps Soeiro to the White House, along with all the authors and illustrators of the books on her list. Have a conversation, maybe bring in some additional authors. Phipps Soeiro's list is big on multi-culturalism, so perhaps there is a Slovenian children's writer that you could include.