Librarian to Melania Trump: Take your green eggs and scram!
Massachusetts school refuses first lady’s book donation, criticizes choice as a ‘cliché’
NEW YORK— A librarian at an awardwinning Massachusetts school declined books donated by U.S. first lady Melania Trump, suggesting she instead send them to students who are truly in need.
The White House selected a school from every state to receive 10 Dr. Seuss books in recognition of National Read a Book Day — among them a Cambridge, Mass., public school where Liz Phipps Soeiro works as a librarian.
In an open letter to Melania Trump on the Horn Book’s Family Reading blog, Soeiro thanks the first lady for recognizing her school, but then explains why her students do not need the donation.
“My students have access to a school library with over 9,000 volumes and a librarian with a graduate degree in library science,” she wrote.
“Multiple studies show that schools with professionally staffed libraries improve student performance.”
Soeiro continues on to point out how libraries across the U.S. are being shuttered while schools in “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?” Soeiro wrote.
She urged Melania Trump instead to send books to “underfunded and underprivileged communities that may continue to be marginalized and maligned by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.”
The librarian also criticized the book selection in general, which included titles such as Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat and Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
“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,” Soeiro informed the first lady.