As many educators have noted, discussing The Lorax can encourage students - even young children - to see themselves as environmental activists in their own communities. Indeed, The Lorax offers wonderful potential to provoke students to think about environmental degradation - from the rape of the ancient forests to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. With luck, we may live happily ever after. The earth and its creatures are given another chance to live a sane and ecological life. Although the book chronicles an environmental holocaust, the story ends on a hopeful note, with a redemptive speech from the formerly evil Once-ler. On first reading, The Lorax appears to be a straightforward tale about the horrors of pollution and the necessity to become aware of nature’s interconnectedness. What is a good society, and how can we bring it about? Tackling these not-so simple questions was the goal of “Literature and Social Change,” a class I taught for several years at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon. Rethinking Schools published a blog on Maextending this critique to the Universal Pictures release of the film by the same name. Seuss’s classic “environmental” book of the same name, we share an article by Bill Bigelow about the lessons children learn (and don’t learn) from the book and film about the causes of environmental ruin and how to organize for change. The article first appeared in Rethinking Schools magazine in the early 1990s.

With the release of the Universal Pictures film, The Lorax, based on Dr.

The lorax by dr seuss