It’s not.” The book ends with the child receiving the very last truffula seed, in hopes that if he takes good care of a new forest and “protect it from axes that hack,” in time, the Lorax and his friends will come back. The Once-ler tells the child, in a line that has become a famous rallying cry for social and environmental justice, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. All that was left was a big empty factory-and a message from the Lorax that said, “unless.”

He cut down a tree to make a “thneed,” an ambiguous piece of fabric, which he quickly realized people would buy in droves.ĭespite the repeated warnings from a creature called the Lorax, who spoke on behalf of the trees, the Once-ler and his family members chopped down every single truffula tree in the valley, until smog filled the air, and all the fish and animals were displaced. The Once-ler tells the child how a long time ago, he came across a beautiful utopia with bright “truffula” trees and cheerful animals.

In The Lorax, a child walks through a barren, polluted town to visit a reclusive man named the Once-ler and pays him to tell the story of the past.

Dr seuss the lorax book