Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss? He’s a cultural touchstone. And yet, most folks don’t know anything about his life, career or personal views outside of him being a beloved children’s book author. In this book, Minear collects editorial cartoons created by Dr. Seuss when he drew for the left-wing NY daily PM from 1941-1943. At the time, the world was bracing itself for war, and we see Dr. Seuss’s editorial wit and perspective on WWII issues: US isolationism, Us anti-semitism and racism, Hitler, Russia’s involvement, Mussolini, etc. Minear does more than present the cartoons, however; he lays out the historical context for each and explains them. He does a great job of tying common threads across these disparate cartoons. We get to see the kind of sharp, caustic wit and insight found in the best editorial cartoons. And all of that is done through the familiar Seuss art styling. The unfortunate part of the book was seeing the racist caricatures of Japanese people in many of Seuss’s works (i.e. buck teeth, slanted eyes, etc.). Also, a critique of the Kindle edition: the cartoons followed the commentary; it would have been far more effective for each cartoon to be embedded within the commentary. It’s a fascinating look at a very adult side of Dr. Seuss.

This kind of read like a PhD thesis, and I didn’t agree with all the analysis… but I’m obviously not an expert on historical cartoons and the general subject matter was so interesting, it ended up being a fun read. Steamy scale 0 of 5 (Kindle)

As a historical artifact of WWII, when even beloved children's writers were generating highly racist propaganda in the name of "Saving Democracy", this book gets five stars. As a book about Dr. Seuss's work at one point in history, it gets more like 3 stars as it mixes highly progressive pieces about treating Blacks working for the war effort and in the military as equals and pointed pieces of how the Axis was treating the Jewish population with truly appalling racist imagery of the Japanese.

It is, as is often said of older books, of its time - and if you are looking for books about WWII's homefront, it's a good place to start.

"For decades, readers throughout the world have enjoyed the marvelous stories and illustrations of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. But few know Geisel's work as a political cartoonish during World Wart II for the New York daily newspaper PM. In these marvelously trenchant cartoons, Geisel captured the Zeitgeist -- especially the attitudes of the New Deal Liberals who read PM -- with a wonderful Seussian flair. Dr. Seuss Goes to War features handsome, large-format reproductions of more than two hundred of Geisel's cartoons from this time.

"The cartoons savage Hitler, Japan, Mussolini, and 'isolationist' leaders such as Charles Lindbergh; exhort readers to give full support to the war effort, put up with shortages, buy U.S. savings bonds, and help control inflation. They are sharply critical of anti-Semitism and anti-black racism -- and, shockingly, undeniably racist in their portrayal of Japanese Americans. An introduction and commentary by Richard H. Minear, an historian of the era and author of Victgor's Justice, place them in context and provide insight i8nto the national climate they reflect.

"Lovers of Dr. Seuss will take renewed delight in his whimsical and imaginative illustrations. Those for whom World War II is an abiding passion will find a brand-new look at the war and American involvement. And those concerned with American attitude -- particularly in the press -- will find that Dr. Suess's cartoons of 1941 and 1942 bring back to life the mood and issues of the day."
~~front flap

I'm sure this is an accurate portrayal of the mind set of the times. The problem is times have changed since then -- lots of water under the bridge, making it difficult for me to enjoy the cartoons or even be able to appreciate them as representative. They seemed crude to me, and lurking in the background of my mind was the thought that they wouldn't have convinced me if I'd be alive at that time.

If you're a reader with an abiding passion for WWII, you'l probably like this book. I'm not, and so I didn't particularly.

.An outstandingly hilarious , vicious , scary , sad and spooky gorgeous rocket of a book that i recommend for all fans of dr Seuss and all those interested in the second world war. Complex at times ( anti-asian racism and war time propaganda ) his anti-fascism is brillant , often truthfull , and he should be recognised as the beacon of democracy freedom and liberty that he is not censored or villified by his own politically correct family who have made money off his back like wool from a Sheep and cheaply threw him under the bus launching a massive debate on cancel culture between liberals and concervatives where oddly in his defense or to attack him this wornderfully fun and fascinating book was never presented. As a fan of dr Seuss i can tell you , this book is a dr Seuss classic and masterpiece a must read for the many dr Seuss fans , shocking and dissapointed that this masterpiece is'nt more widely read or appreciated.
Oh and the cancel culture woke mob please remember that the Obama's love dr Seuss because unlike you they and dr Seuss really were liberal and stood to the real values of the anti-fascist left not posing like moralistic hypocrites.

“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff You should get over that quickly
The world is messy; there are ambiguities People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.
I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people and that’s enough.
Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb , then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.
That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change
If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do. " once said former président Barack Obama. And to that , and after having read this wonderfull book , i agree.

The cartoons are noteworthy, and it may be a sign of the success of this book that it no longer seems strange to see Dr. Seuss's propaganda cartoons. That said, the accompanying text is mediocre, consisting mostly of descriptions of cartoons without too much insight into Geisel's thinking. The last chapter is more analytical than the others and more revealing, but the text still leaves a lot to be desired. Too often Minear speculates when it would be nice to know - whether from Geisel's letters, papers, etc. - what he was actually thinking. For example, seeing how Geisel was a German-American, I would have loved to know more about how Hitler and Nazism affected him, but while the question is raised, it's not really aanswered.

Very interesting cartoons from the 1930's and 1940's. Some can still apply today. It gives notes on the cartoons. It was enjoyable to read and see another side of Dr. Seuss.

I saw a cartoon online, searched for it, and discovered the existence of this book. I had to own it. Before The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss drew political cartoons. From January 1941 - January 1943, his cartoons covered the political climate of the time. These prescient, recognizably Seussian drawings speak of racism, isolationism, immigration, demagoguery, refugees, and a fearful populace. Like his books that still hold the fascination of 21st-century children, so many of these cartoons are timeless: "America First," isolationism, and racism went hand-in-hand in 1941, just like they do in 2017. That didn't work out so well in 1941, and it won't work out well in 2017. And Dr. Seuss, who explained so many things so very well, explains why.

Less Description, More Context/Analysis

I picked this up largely because I live around where Dr. Seuss grew up and lived and I wanted to know more about the period of his life that doesn't get a lot of attention, the time before his famous childrens' books. I really struggled to finish this book - it ended up taking a little over ten months, though for about half that time it just sat on my currently-reading list and I put it off because I didn't want to pick it up again - largely because so much of this book was description. Minear described every single cartoon in painstaking detail, which isn't bad in and of itself. I appreciated that for the cartoons where an image was not supplied. But Minear did this even for cartoons where the image was included, and for some reason any referenced images were at the end of the chapter not with the relevant part of the text. This emphasis on description caused a dearth of what I really wanted from this book, which was context for the cartoons. There was a little throughout the text, but a miniscule amount compared to simple descriptions of the cartoons themselves.

For collecting these images and providing some good explanation/analysis of them, I give this three stars. However, this is not a book that I would reread or one that I would recommend to anyone wasn't looking for reference material.

If you're a Dr. Seuss fan like me, its worth the look...

So, the cartoons themselves are at least 4-star (not quite 5-star, as it is the Doctor's early works and single-panels), and the fact that someone organized it into a decent book is a 4-star accomplishment. But I sometimes the scholarship portion of the book rambled or left gaps, so I was just a little cold on the text.

Pair it with this: https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/index.html for an enriched experience.

I knew that Dr Seuss was a political cartoonist in his early career but I had no idea that so many of the animals and people in his children’s books first were drawn for his cartoons. This was a quick read that highlighted for me how sophisticated well done political cartoons can be — how nuances of the type of hat the character wears or how a smiling cat seems to be peeking around a sofa — add layers of depth and meaning to the cartoon. I would love to know what Seuss would be drawing today in the current political climate?