Dr. Seuss’ anti-war book was once banned but is suddenly more relevant than ever.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was a well known author of children's books. The Butter Battle Book, tells the story of the Yooks and Zooks. These weird looking characters have much in common but differ in two minor ways: the Yooks wear blue and butter their bread butter-side up, while the Zooks wear orange and butter their bread butter-side down. Rather than simply agree to disagree they engage in an escalating arms race building increasingly destructive weaponry. Finally a laboratory of scientists known as “The Boys In The Back Room” develop a deadly nuclear bean called the “bitsy big-boy boomeroo". The Butter Battle Book ends with the Yooks and Zooks at an impasse with their generals holding their atomic beans over the ground. This is followed by an ambiguous blank white page that could be interpreted as the end of all life.
The book was written in 1984 during the Cold War when people were living in fear of a nuclear war. Geisel's critique of the the military industrial complex made him an enemy of the right and some American and Canadian public libraries went so far as to ban the book when it was released.

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