Dr. Seuss

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Anita Bensoussane
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Dr. Seuss

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Although I had already encountered And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street in an anthology, I really came to know Dr. Seuss's books in the reading corner at infant school. I have fond memories of curling up with titles like The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and Green Eggs and Ham. I would lose myself in the zany yet thought-provoking stories, gaze in fascination at the quirky illustrations and revel in the delightful sounds of the rhymes.

Seuss was a wizard with words. I recall hearing that, with some of his books for beginner readers, the publishers issued him with a set word list and he enjoyed the challenge of creating an interesting and meaningful tale despite being restricted by strict guidelines.

When my children were little, I rediscovered Seuss and read some more of his work. At the age of three my daughter used to go to playschool two mornings a week and she made a friend there who would often come round to play. My daughter had a thing about Seuss's Fox in Socks and one day she asked me to read it to her and her friend. Well, the other little girl loved it too and, for several months after that, they regularly implored me to read Fox in Socks and would chant lines from it in anticipation as I walked them home from playschool. It was full of tongue-twisters and had a strong rhythm and rhyme-scheme. Seuss's books are a pleasure to read aloud and I think they foster an appreciation for the sounds and creativity of language.

My son loved Dr. Seuss even more than my daughter did. By the time he was old enough to read the books for himself we had a whole collection of them and he read them over and over, his favourites being The Sneetches, Yertle the Turtle, The Big Brag, The Zax, What Was I Scared Of? and Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?

The Sneetches is my favourite:
But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches
Would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches."
With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they'd snort,
"We'll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!"
And, whenever they met some, when they were out walking,
They'd hike right on past them without even talking.
Of course, the Star-Belly Sneetches learn their lesson - Seuss introduces moral issues to children in the most fun and inventive manner.

Certain Seuss verses have become part of our family vocabulary. If someone has made a mess we quote from The Cat in the Hat:
...this mess is so big
And so deep and so tall
We cannot pick it up.
There is no way at all!
Walking in the countryside past prickly bushes like gorse or bramble, we'll remember the lines from What Was I Scared Of?:
I ran and found a Brickel bush,
I hid myself away.
I got brickels in my britches
But I stayed there anyway.
In September my daughter went off to university and I gave her a present to take with her - Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go!, which begins:
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
Any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
You're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
Great stuff!
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Aussie Sue »

What a great post Anita. Dr Seuss books have been real favourites in our house also. Dr Seuss books were the first books both my children could read on their own. And even as the children grew up, like in your home, we would often recite them with us all ending up giggling. Then I had the delight of introducing them to my grandchildren who also loved them. All children should be introduced to Dr Seuss books.

What could be better for children than to have a house full of Enid Blyton books and Dr Seuss books?

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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Kate Mary »

Dr Seuss books are very clever and so funny. I never read them as a child but have read them all since. I always had to stop whatever I was doing in the kid's library and read one when I came across it, much to the boss's annoyance.

Loved your quotes, Anita. Thanks for posting.
"I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines." Oliver Goldsmith

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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by deepeabee »

I love Dr Seuss books and wondered whether to start a thread but decided to confine him to general natter because I wasn't sure if anyone else here appreciated him as I did. I'm glad that he is appreciated.

“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”
― Dr. Seuss
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Feel free to add to the thread if you like, Deepeabee. When my son came home from school I got talking to him about the fact that Dr. Seuss had been mentioned on the forums (originally by you) and we had a happy time swapping Seuss-related memories and quotations, and listening to a reading of What Was I Scared Of? on YouTube (we've got that story in a big book of tales by Seuss, but it has been put away upstairs).:D
Aussie Sue wrote:What could be better for children than to have a house full of Enid Blyton books and Dr Seuss books?
What indeed?!
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Petermax »

We had Dr Seuss books at my primary school back in the early 1970's. I would sometimes sneak off to the school library during lessons in order to read them. However, I did also peruse the more serious books as well because I considered that the standard of teaching was simply not quite good enough! I was only eight! :lol: :

I used to read Dr Seuss to my nephew when he was younger. I just love the way that the words and the pictures seem to leap out of the pages simultaneously. My nephew thought so too, he would start repeating everything that I read to him, it must be to do with the rhyming nature of the stories. What a marvelous reading aid the Dr Seuss books are. :D
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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Stephen »

Oh yes, I loved them! Some amazing illustrations and wonderful nonsense dialogue. A lot of them I can't have read for a good thirty years but looking through his bibliography, here were a few of my favourites...

Horton Hears A Who!
The Cat in the Hat
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
Ten Apples up on Top!
Fox in Socks
I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! and Other Stories
There's a Wocket in my Pocket!
Oh Say Can You Say?
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Earlier today I enjoyed listening to a Radio 4 programme on iPlayer - The Science of Dr Seuss - which claimed that Dr. Seuss wrote with the mind of a scientist and psychologist. Many of his books ask questions about consciousness, behaviour and organisation. Like a scientist, Seuss focuses on the incongruous and the extraordinary and pushes the boundaries. He also addresses the the notion of being prepared to fail and to get up and carry on afterwards. I hadn't heard before that a real-life material known for its curious properties, oobleck, was named after a sticky substance in one of Seuss's lesser-known books, Bartholomew the Oobleck. Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid, neither liquid nor solid, which doesn't flow in the ordinary way and becomes more solid under pressure.

The programme reminded me of something an acquaintance once said - that she didn't like Dr. Seuss's books because they were "nonsense". Well, some of his writing could indeed be categorised as "nonsense" - but it's nonsense of the highest quality! Seuss is inventive and mischievous and I think his playfulness draws children in and gives them an early appreciation of language and ideas. There is plenty of "sense" amid the "nonsense", making readers think about the world and their place in it - and about human interaction. Look at the lessons to be gleaned (while revelling in the zaniness and eloquence) from stories like The Sneetches, What Was I Scared Of?, Green Eggs and Ham, The Zax and many others.

It's a while since I last read a Dr. Seuss book but the stories and rhythms have stayed with me and I know I'll return to them one of these days.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Ming »

I've never read Dr. Seuss' work but I did watch The Lorax, where the protagonist destroys a lush forest of truffula trees to make the factory town of Thneedville. Of course, when the last tree is cut down, Thneedville is transformed into an unlivable place, and some years in the future, the town once again bustles but the richest people in the town are the ones who sell bottled fresh air, and no one has ever seen a tree.

I really liked the film for the lessons it provided, its environmental activism, and its accessibility for people of all ages and cultures.
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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Courtenay »

There I'm the opposite — The Lorax was one of my favourite Dr Seuss books as a child, but I haven't seen the film! :lol: The book doesn't take the story nearly as far as the film, going from what you describe, but it's a simple but poignant fable of how one character's greed — however well-meaningly he started — leads to the progressive destruction of a whole ecosystem, with a gleam of hope at the end that one person can start restoring what was lost. It would be interesting to see the film and compare.

Dr Seuss in general was a staple of my childhood reading and I love so many of his books too, including the ones Anita mentions. :D
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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by deepeabee »

I was interested to read your post Anita about Dr Seuss being a psychologist as I have used his Sneetches https://youtu.be/PdLPe7XjdKc in psychology classes to teach prejudice. The students love it but they also get the idea quicker than explaining it to them. :D
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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

A brilliant idea, Dot! I don't think Dr. Seuss had qualifications in science or psychology but he was said to have that mindset. One of the people on the radio show referred to him as "a lay psychologist".

Interesting comments on The Lorax, Ming and Courtenay. I've never seen the film and I've only read the book once. I bought a boxed set of Dr. Seuss volumes from The Works three or four years ago and read them to myself, The Lorax being one that I hadn't come across before. I found it extremely moving and it made a great impression on me.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Courtenay »

deepeabee wrote:I was interested to read your post Anita about Dr Seuss being a psychologist as I have used his Sneetches https://youtu.be/PdLPe7XjdKc in psychology classes to teach prejudice. The students love it but they also get the idea quicker than explaining it to them. :D
:lol: :lol: :lol: Hey, I'd never seen that version of The Sneetches before — thanks, Dot. Possibly even better in animated form than the original book!
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Post by Courtenay »

Just been reading this very interesting feature from the BBC: The surprisingly radical politics of Dr Seuss

I was somewhat aware of Seuss's wartime political cartoons and of course very aware of the messages in a lot of his children's books, which I grew up on and absolutely loved (The Lorax is one of my favourites, along with Yertle the Turtle and The Sneetches, among many others), but I'm quite shocked to learn how racist he was regarding the Japanese and particularly the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war. Not at all shocked that those attitudes existed and were common back then, especially when Japan and the Allies were at war — of course I knew that — but shocked because so much of Seuss's work, even his early work, promoted ideas of fairness and respect and equality and treating everyone with decency no matter who they are. It seems he was clearly opposed to Hitler's racism and anti-Semitism, yet people of Japanese origin in America were fair game and obviously enemy agents just because of their ancestry... for sure, this was wartime, but it's just a bit sad that he apparently couldn't see any contradiction there. :( Still, even if he didn't quite apologise in so many words later on, he certainly made up for it with so many of his works for children afterwards. Good to be reminded of them. :D
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Re: Dr. Seuss

Post by Rob Houghton »

I first came across Dr Seuss when I was preschool age and got some of his books from the library. I vividly remember the one that made the most impact, and that was 'Fox in Socks' - I loved it and could read it myself - one of the first books I can remember reading. I could read before I went to school, although I can't recall if I read this one before I started school or later. :D
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