Today is Read Across America day celebrated in kid spaces, schools, libraries, literacy programs across the country in honor of Seuss’s birthday which is (was) March 2.
My work is largely based in children’s literacy. We do celebrate this day in our programming.
I’m well aware that there is controversial stuff about Seuss - especially some of his early political drawings, etc. Can we please not make this thread about that?
What the thread IS about is…are you a fan of his children’s books? Were your kids??? A family favorite title?
Disclosure: I do not like Seuss books. A fan I am not. I’d rather read anything else to my once little tot.
(see what I did there?!) But I go along with the day for the purpose of promoting read aloud time!
Children’s librarian here. And I am with you on not being a fan of Seuss. Cat in the Hat is okay and they can be capitvating for a beginning reader, which is what they are designed to be. But a story time literature? Nope.
My kids enjoyed the books but they weren’t their favorites. They had many of the books in hardcover which I later donated to the library at the elementary school. The school always seemed to need extra copies as they were checked out a lot.
I dislike his drawing style, but the first book I ever remember owning was Green Eggs and Ham which I can still recite large chunks of by heart. I love the subversiveness of The Cat in the Hat as well. I actually think the books are pretty brilliant, it’s too bad they are so ugly!
I loved Dr. Seuss as a kid. My kids liked Seuss, but they had a lot of other options as well, so I’m not sure what their favorites were. From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.
Wife and I grew up on those books and we have our favorites (tattered and worn) from our childhoods. We read them to our two kids when they were very young - I can still remember their laughter as we read to them before bedtime. Our 2 kids rapidly out grew them but some passages remain in the brain and I hear them quoted from time to time: “Try them, try them, and you may!” when our S was trying to get D to try uni for the first time. I know it’s fashionable to find fault with everything these days, but sometime a book is just a book.
We like some of the accompanying books: Hop on Pop; Go Dog, Go; Ten Apples up on Top, etc. I thought I liked One fish, Two fish, until trying to explain what all those critters are to a very literal two year old. And I definitely sneaky skip pages in One Fish Two Fish, it’s too many wackadoodle pages at bedtime.
S1 loved Dr. Seuss books. We had an anthology of Seuss stories & his favorite was “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins”. He loved numbers and counting, so this one made him happy.
S2 wasn’t as much of a Seuss fan, but did like “Wacky Wednesday”.
I have purged many children’s books…but I have our full collection of Dr. Seuss hardbound Books. I never really liked the Cat in the Hat…but my kids loved Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and many others.
Agree that the drawings aren’t terrific, and the story lines are silly at best. But the rhyming is amazing.
My kids can still recite some of these from memory. Can’t say that about all of the books we had!
Another children’s librarian here. I respect the revolution the books brought to reading and publishing, but no, we did not read them at home, except for Red Fish Blue Fish. and I hate cat in the Hat. these children say over and over to stop, very clearly. And are ignored with a laugh. Always gave me the creeps and I didn’t want my boys to ever associate ignoring a clear No as something funny.
Hated the Berestain Bears, too. Ugly, cluttered, pedantic…Mo Willems and Jon Baker are my heros, amongst many others
I wasn’t a fan of Dr. Seuss books. I did make sure that my children heard and read them.
They loved Green Eggs and Ham because they rejected certain foods, so this book rang true with them.
They loved Go Dog Go and the Where’s Spot? books. I think because these were simple and could be read over and over again.
Thank goodness for “Go Dog Go.” I didn’t think middle kid would ever learn to read, but that book did the trick. I was fortunate my sister is a literacy teacher, because she told me not to freak out when he wasn’t reading at the beginning of first grade. She was right. He’s an English major now.
I didn’t buy much Dr. Seuss. We usually borrowed them from the library. I think the favorite was -And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.How the Grinch Stole Christmas and the Lorax were also loved.There’s a Wocket In My Pocket and Dr.Seuss’s ABC book really helped learning to read.
But I go along with the day for the purpose of promoting read aloud time!