Dr. Suess is classic goodness. His books encourage children to think and inspire them to dream, while promoting social equality and environmental responsibility. It makes sense then that a fourth grade class who grew up on his books of prose and poems, decided to creatively raise their voices to defend the integrity of the book and honor The Lorax. After seeing that Universal Picture's promotional materials for their upcoming movie about Suess' book portrayed a sterilized Lorax, the kid's raised their voice, created a petition on Change.org and demanded that an environmental education component be added to the movie trailer and website.

Published in 1971, The Lorax was written in response to Suess' anger over the destruction of natural resources and the environment. When speaking about The Lorax, Suess said, "It's a book about going easy on what we've got. It's anti-pollution and anti-greed." It's an iconic book in the environmental movement and though it has been banned in some school districts, it has been part of grade school curriculum for decades in others. It was a spark for my own awareness and passion for environmental justice and was the fodder for some pretty awesome discussions in environmental education classes I taught in Ann Arbor Public Schools. 

At a time when a lot of companies are jumping on the green bandwagon, I was shocked that Universal would hide this treehugging hero from his own story. But, thanks to Mr. Wells' fourth grade class in Brookline, Massachusetts and the 57,000+ people they moved to sign the petition, Universal relented and made the changes the kids requested on their site. 

A few weeks before he died in 1991, Dr. Suess said "the best slogan I could think of to leave to the kids of the U.S.A. would be 'We can . . . and we've got to . . . do better than this.'" It's good to see a group of fourth graders who realize this truth band together to take a stand.