Most everyone grows up with Dr. Seuss as a part of their childhood. He’s known for his inventive rhymes and surreal drawings. Do you have a favorite book?
Share why if you wish.
Asking — and answering — life's interesting questions
Most everyone grows up with Dr. Seuss as a part of their childhood. He’s known for his inventive rhymes and surreal drawings. Do you have a favorite book?
Share why if you wish.
Truth be told, I haven’t read many Dr. Seuss books. But even though I am an adult, I’ve toyed with collecting them for the lessons they teach.
As for my favorite, it really should be “Horton Hears a Who!” because of its demonstrating the power of collective action — one of the ways through work and habit I work to advance justice. But it comes in second.
My favorite is “The Lorax.” It illustrates the impact of us having a consumerist society. Our “biggering, Biggering, BIGGERING, and BIGGERING” to turn “more Truffula Trees into Thneeds” is destroying the Trees. Americans’ — 4% of the world’s population consuming (and often throwing away) 25% of the resources — are BIGGERING at an unsustainable level. Thankfully, we have the Lorax to speak for the Trees.
Will you join in?
As a child, I *loved* the Dr. Seuss books. I still do. Like the annual favorite ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’, or the anarchic ‘The Cat in the Hat’, or the environmental warrior ‘The Lorax’, or ‘The Sneetches’ with their racial message, or the heart-tugging ‘The Horton Hears A Who’.
But my favorite is one of his works for younger readers, ‘Fox In Sox’. It was one of my first books, and the clever rhymes, tongue twisters, and contrarian title character helped solidify my love of words, reading, and shaped my young personality.
When I was in college, I gave a copy of ‘Fox In Sox’ as a Christmas gift to a friend of mine, hoping to share my love of this particular book. However, looking back, I can easily see how an early-reader book was inappropriate for a fully-formed young adult! To this day, I fear she took it as an insult to her reading skills.
Lee, off the top of my head, ‘Star-Bellied Sneetch’ — I remember reading it to my daughter many years ago. I love the lesson about racism – still timely.
I have two. “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” and “Horton Hatches the Egg” in which Horton demonstrates perseverance in sticking to his word, despite difficulties. “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred per cent!”
As a kid, I wanted the “parade of strange things” type books—If I Ran the Zoo, etc. I didn’t care about the plot, just the spectacle. It probably helped get me into fantasy and sci-fi. (Of course, that particular book has some problematic racial moments through modern eyes.)