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The Butter Battle Book
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Wikipedia article
'The Butter Battle Book' is a rhyming story written by Dr. Seuss. It was published by Random House on January 12, 1984. It is an anti-war story; specifically, a parable about arms races in general, mutually assured destruction and nuclear weapons in particular. 'The Butter Battle Book' was a 'New York Times' Notable Book of the Year.
This book was written during the Cold War era and reflects the concerns of the time, especially the perceived possibility that humanity could be destroyed in a nuclear war. It can also be seen as a satirical work, with its depiction of a deadly war based on a senseless conflict over something as trivial as a breakfast food. The concept of a war based on toast is similar to the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu in Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire 'Gulliver's Travels', which was nominally based on an argument over the correct end to crack an egg once soft-boiled.
Plot elements of the book were adapted for Warner Bros. Animation's 'Green Eggs and Ham: The Second Serving'.
Plot
The Yooks and Zooks live on opposite sides of a long curving wall. The narrator of the story is a Yook child whose grandfather takes him to the wall, explaining he is a retired soldier. The difference between the two cultures is that while the Yooks eat their bread with the butter side up, the Zooks eat their bread with the butter side down. The conflict between the two sides leads to an escalating arms race, which results in the threat of mutual assured destruction.
The race begins when a Zook patrolman named VanItch slingshots the Yook patrolman's "Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch" (a switch-esque truncheon with prickly burrs); the Yook involved in that incident was the narrator's grandfather. The Yooks then develop a machine with three slingshots interlinked, called a "Triple-Sling Jigger". This works once; but the next day VanItch counterattacks with his own creation, the "Jigger-Rock Snatchem", a machine with three nets to catch the rocks fired by the Triple-Sling Jigger and fling them back to the Yooks' side. Every time the patrolman is defeated, he reports this to the Chief Yookeroo, who tells him not to worry ("My Bright Boys are thinking"), and three intelligent Yooks are shown drafting plans for a more modern weapon.
The Yooks then create a gun called the "Kick-A-Poo Kid", which is loaded with "powerful Poo-A-Doo powder and ants' eggs and bees' legs and dried-fried clam chowder", and carried by a trained gun-toting spaniel named Daniel. The Zooks counterattack with an "Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz", a machine that shoots "high-explosive sour cherry stone pits". The Yooks then devise the brand new "Utterly Sputter": a large blue vehicle mainly intended "to sprinkle blue goo all over the Zooks". The Zooks counterattack with their own Sputter. Eventually, each side possesses a small but extremely destructive red bomb called the "Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo", and neither has any defense against it, so if the Yooks' patrolman or VanItch drop theirs, the Yooks and Zooks will have to stay underground to make sure that they don't get blown away.
The generals of both sides stand on the wall, each poised to drop their bombs onto the other side and waiting for the other to strike first. The narrator asks his grandfather, "Who's gonna drop it? Will you or will he?" to which Grandpa nervously replies, "Be patient. We'll see. We will see..." The book then ends without giving a conclusion (though it is very likely that no matter who drops their bomb first, the other will do so in retaliation, thus resulting in the annihilation of both sides).
Television media
Television special
There was an animated TV special by animator and filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, narrated by Charles Durning and produced by and aired on TNT on November 13, 1989. The special followed the book quite closely, notably in its preservation of its original cliffhanger ending, with the addition of a title card "The End (maybe)" at the conclusion of the story. Seuss himself called the short the most faithful adaptation of his work.[http://www.seussville.com/?home#/videopage Dr. Seuss considered the 1989 television special of 'The Butter Battle Book' to be the most faithful rendition of any of his works.](1993)
Cast
*Charles Durning as Grandpa*Christopher Collins as Chief Yookeroo and Various Yooks
*Miriam Flynn as Yookie-Ann Sue, Teacher, and Various Yooks
*Clive Revill as Van Itch
*Joseph Cousins as Grandson
'Green Eggs and Ham'
The book serves as the basis for the second season of 'Green Eggs and Ham', subtitled 'The Second Serving'. Here, it is established that Yookia and Zookia are ruled by a "Dooka" and "Dookess", respectively; residents of both nations are relatively harmless, yet are convinced that the other is evil. Sam-I-Am and Guy-Am-I end up on opposite sides of the conflict. The Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo is omitted in favor of a conflict over "Moo-Lacka-Moo", the substance said to serve as the Boomeroo's core in the book, which is acquired by the Yooks while the Zooks hire Guy to build a machine due to his habit of creating inventions that explode. Unlike the book, the conflict is resolved when the respective weapons destroy the wall, due in part to Sam-I-Am and his mother Pam's meddling, and Guy's step-daughter E.B. and the Dooka's son Looka share a butter sandwich with everyone watching.Censorship and analysis
'The Butter Battle Book' was removed from the shelves of at least one Canadian public library during the Cold War because of the book's position regarding the arms race.Schrader, Alvin M., and Canadian Library, Association (1995). 'Fear of Words: Censorship and the Public Libraries of Canada'. Ottawa, Ont.: Canadian Library Association [https://web.archive.org/web/20150613233532/https://library.usask.ca/education/files/Guides/ftr.pdf "Challenged Books"] University of Saskatchewan website
An article in the July 27, 1984 issue of the conservative magazine 'National Review' found it plausible that the book was not more popular because of Seuss' promotion of a theme of "moral equivalence", where the difference between the Soviet Union and the United States was equivalent to a disagreement over the proper side on which to butter bread.'The Butter Battle Book', 'National Review', July 27, 1984, p. 16
On the other hand, Roger S. Clark, a professor at Rutgers University School of Law, argued in an article in the 'New York Law School Law Review' that "'The Butter Battle Book' ... captures the arms race and the development of weapons of war. ... The book struck such a chord with me when it came out in 1984 (which was also Seusss eightieth birthday). Something Orwellian about the timing! While its message is timeless, I suspect Seuss was well aware of the context he was writing in. It was a time when many people the world over, especially organizations of doctors and lawyers, were groping their way toward the massive civil society effort that led eventually to the advisory proceedings on nuclear weapons being brought through the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. General Assembly."Clark, Roger S. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150613203459/http://www.nylslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/05/Volume-58-3.Clark_.pdf "Is The Butter Battle Books Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo Banned? What Has International Law to Say About Weapons of Mass Destruction?"] 'New York Law School Law Review' (v.58 2013/14) pp. 657658
References
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