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Sally Murphy, Australian author

Big Question 4: Favourite Dr Seuss Tale

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He’s having a birthday, he’s having it now
So step up, Dr Seuss and take a big bow.

Okay, so my rhyme is NOT as Seussical as can be, but you get the drift – today, March 2, is Dr Seuss’s birthday. If he was alive today, Dr Seuss, or Theodor Suess Geisel would be 105. If you want to learn more about him, you can click here to visit the Seussville website.

To celebrate the day, I am asking another of my big questions. Today’s question is: What was/is your favourite Dr Seuss book, and why? Post your answer below in the comment section.

My own favourite as a child and still, is Horton Hatches an Egg, I think mainly for the sheer absurdity of the idea, but also for the wonderfully wrought rhyme and rhythm, and of course, the message of being true to your promises – and being justly rewarded!

What about you? What is YOUR favourite Dr Seuss book?

Comments

  1. GREEN EGGS AND HAM. It was the first book I obsessed over.

    I “read” the pictures before I could read the words. Now, I get a kick out of how much my son enjoys it.

    To celebrate Dr. Suess’s birthday, my son and I have been attending and blogging about as many Suess parties as possible. “Oh, the places we’ll go…”

  2. Oh, definitely, I love THE SNEETCHES and all of the stories and ditties in that book: The Zax, What Was I Scared Of, Too Many Daves. Each one is a great, funny riff on tolerance and acceptance; still relevant!

  5. I can’t go past “The Lorax”, starring a strange little guy who “speaks for the trees”. This story was one of the first I read with a strong environmental theme. It still resonates today, as we face the same environmental issues the good doctor faced in addition to a few new ones such as climate change and peak oil.

    Happy Birthday Dr.S!

    Julie
    http://members.optusnet.com.au/~

  6. This one is hard…

    The Lorax?
    If I Ran The Zoo?
    The Sneetches?
    Yertle the Turtle?

    Ugh, please don’t make me choose!

  8. I will always love One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish as it was the first book I ever “read” on my own. (Probably just memorized it, but anywho…)
    Then as I began teaching I have used The Sneetches each year for this that or the other.

  11. Wacky Wednesday is definitely my favorite! Now, purists will wonder why I voted by a book by Theo LeSeig, but there’s an easy answer. Mr. Theodore Giesel had TWO pen names — Dr. Seuss when he did the pictures himself and LeSeig when he was the author and someone else did the pictures.

    (We’re not going to count “My many colored days” because that was published after he died, so he

  12. Oh, so many to choose from. I will have to pick, Oh the Places You’ll Go. My email at work uses a quote from the book in my signature.

    ~The more that you read, the more things you will know.
    The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.~- Dr. Seuss

  13. Green Eggs and Ham – because it is a good book. He doesn’t want to eat green eggs and ham and he goes to all these places and crashes the train and ends up in the water and when he finally eats the green eggs and ham he likes it. So it’s fun. (Aged 9)

  14. Hi Sally, My favourite Dr Seuss Book is all of them but – The 500 Hats of Bartholemew Cubbins holds a special place. I love the way he gets from one hat to two and after that it is just a breeze to get to 500. A good lession for writers, methinks! In general, the rhymes are so wonderful to read aloud or recite. Who could resist?
    “Winkibus
    Tinkibus
    Fotichee Klay,
    Hat on this

  15. The Cat in the Hat… except it drives me nuts when my clients inform me they’re aiming for the same style. I have to inform them, gently, that The Cat is my age – published in 1957. They should NOT be using a book that old as a template in the 21st C.

  16. I can’t pick just one! It honestly depends on my mood. So I’ll pick something that I love that’s a tad more obscure: What Was I Scared Of (from The Sneetches and Other Stories).

  19. Definitely ‘The Cat in the Hat’ – I remember the glee on the kids’ faces in my early childhood education class when I read it to them. And their delight at the recklessness of the Cat but also their tinge of concern that soon the parents would be home. Delicious!

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