The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: jay-ell on March 02, 2012, 04:29:42 pm
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It's the Good Doctor's Birthday! Huzzah! Hurray!
It's a wonderful time for all people to say,
"We're glad he was born, and we're glad that he wrote!"
(Although sometimes his tales put a lump in my throat.)
So I'm asking you, people, of all of his rhymes,
Which ones make you wistful for easier times?
Which ones do you read to your daughters and sons?
Which book's the most poignant? Most silly? Most fun?
Please share your Seuss stories, that's why this thread's here!
After all, Seuss Day only comes once a year!
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I loved so many of his books as a kid. I voted for I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, but could have easily voted for any number of others.
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I tried to set it up so you could vote for as many as you wanted, but I don't think you can.
Solla Sollew is actually one I've never read. I loved all the stories in Yertle the Turtle, but my favorite from that collection was The Big Brag. The humor and surprise ending in that story is just perfect. I also loved the sillier books, like On Beyond Zebra and Oh Say Can You Say (which I recently purchased for my own kids, and I can still do most of the tongue twisters from memory).
I was never super wild about The Lorax, though I understand that was Seuss's personal favorite. I did like The Sleep Book a lot, and The Butter Battle Book. And, of course, The Grinch was an annual tradition.
Fun Fact: I never read The Cat in the Hat until I was an adult. I loved Seuss, but somehow that one escaped me.
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These were the only books I ever checked out of the library as a kid. But darned if I have more than vague fuzzy memories about any of them.
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I have The Lorax, but in all honesty, that one can suck it. The youngest is all exciti-ma-fated by the ads for the movie and I'm all awww, crackers about it.
The Lorax has grown on me. I think we'll rent it when it comes out on DVD. If they do as good a job with it as they did on Horton, it'll be pretty cool.
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I have vague memories of wearing "The Pale Green ##### (with Nobody Inside Them)" as a Halloween costume one year.
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I loved Dr. Seuss growning up, but then had to live through so much horriblness when it came to Seussical the Musical (which was produced at the children's theatre I used to work at).
It's been too many years since I've read a Seuss book. I have Green Eggs and Ham at home and I try to watch the cartoon version of the Grinch every year if I can.
Did anyone else have that special program where you got a Seuss book in the mail every month, and a special Cat in the Hat holder to put them all in? That was pretty rad.
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The only ones that really stick in my mind are Green Eggs and Ham and One giraffe Two giraffe... which the filter makes so much more fun that I wanted to vote for it, but on general principle I had to vote for If I Ran The Zoo, of course. Which I didn't read till I was a grownup.
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We are big fans of the good doctor at our house. The vote was a very difficult pick between One giraffe Two giraffe and Fox in Socks, but seeing as I made my favorite line from the former my FB status for the day, I voted for that. "If I Ran the Zoo" is also a favorite.
When I turn off my younger daughter's light at bedtime I often say, "And so, good night. It is time to sleep. So we will sleep with our pet zeep."
Also, what about when beetles fight these battles with their paddles in a puddle in a bottle and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles?
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I tried to set it up so you could vote for as many as you wanted, but I don't think you can.
Fixed!
So many favorites. Green Eggs and Ham and Hop on Pop were the first books I ever read. The Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2. Horton. The daggone Grinch.
Thank you, Dr. Seuss.
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I voted for all the ones I've read, because I liked them all. Even the Lorax. I am surprised to see how little of his ouvre I've actually read. Maybe with kid #2 I'll get to more of them. Kid #1 just wants me to read "Dear American Girl" advice column stuff these days.
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The only ones that really stick in my mind are Green Eggs and Ham and One giraffe Two giraffe... which the filter makes so much more fun that I wanted to vote for it, but on general principle I had to vote for If I Ran The Zoo, of course. Which I didn't read till I was a grownup.
I have the big treasury of stories with biographical notes, and apparently If I Ran the Zoo was inspired by Seuss's father, who was actually a zookeeper. When Ted was a teen and young adult, Giesel Senior would bring home antlers and such from work, and Ted would use them to create faux-taxidermy sculptures of his fantastic creatures (http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2010/10/unorthodox-taxidermy-sculptures-by-dr-seuss/).
Also: Took the kids to the bookstore today and let them each choose a Seuss book. Danger Boy wanted I Can Read with my Eyes Shut in Spanish. Chaos Girl was more interested in puppets so I just got The Lorax. Tonight, we're going to a Read Across America event with a Seussian theme (http://www.marbleskidsmuseum.org/goingon#drseuss) at a local children's museum. This might be my new favorite made-up holiday.
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This might be my new favorite made-up holiday.
I'd certainly rather spend money on this rather than Valentine's day.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers did a nice interpretation of Yertle the Turtle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXWzbsnb638). College dayz flashback.
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Today is also the birthday of Texas. Just sayin'...
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I have the big treasury of stories with biographical notes, and apparently If I Ran the Zoo was inspired by Seuss's father, who was actually a zookeeper. When Ted was a teen and young adult, Giesel Senior would bring home antlers and such from work, and Ted would use them to create faux-taxidermy sculptures of his fantastic creatures (http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2010/10/unorthodox-taxidermy-sculptures-by-dr-seuss/).
That is pretty freaking awesome.
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I read some of these and voted for the ones I liked. For some reason, I have a memory that slides back and forth that he wrote Are You My Mother (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_you_my_mother), which I love like crazy, but he didn't.
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I read some of these and voted for the ones I liked. For some reason, I have a memory that slides back and forth that he wrote Are You My Mother (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_you_my_mother), which I love like crazy, but he didn't.
My favorite Seuss book that he didn't write is Go Dog Go. I really love Put me in the Zoo also.
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Yeah, there's a whole slew of books by P.D. Eastman that are of the same type and bear a similar illustration style. Geisel and Eastman were actually pals, they worked on the Private Snafu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Snafu) animated shorts for the War Department during WWII.
That's also where Geisel met Chuck Jones and Friz Freeling, who were responsible for getting The Grinch and some of his other stories animated and televised in the 1960s. Really fascinating stuff.
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Eastman's birthday is in November. It should be A Thing.
I have a complicated relationship with the Berenstains. I loved their books as a kid; as a parent, I find them stifling and a little too reductive in their morality. But, I have huge respect to the authors (RIP, Jan Berenstain (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/arts/jan-berenstain-dies-at-88-created-berenstain-bears.html)), and almost anything else can be forgiven because the Berenstains brought us the beautifully haunting tale of The Spooky Old Tree (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjFXf9iVvQw).
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Question, is Robert Munsch much of a thing in the US, or is he mostly a Canadian thing?
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Question, is Robert Munsch much of a thing in the US, or is he mostly a Canadian thing?
Who?
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I had to google him. We have exactly one of his books, "Love You Forever," which I understand is Canadia's weepy-eyed sentimental version of "The Giving Tree." I'd say he's mostly a Canadian thing.
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That's really interesting. I'd say Munsch was a bigger part of my childhood than Seuss. Love you Forever is probably owned by every parent I know and read to almost every child. It's been on the local kid's best seller's list for years. The Paper Bag Princess is also a mega classic here. I sort of thought he was a Canadian thing, yet he's an American. Interesting that he's super well known here.
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Yeah, that Eastman dude needs a day as well. Go Dog Go and Are you My Mother? are championship level stuff.
The Berenstain Bears I am on the fence about.
Somewhere around here I posted to a link to their 'parent's book' from the 50s or 60s. Fun shit.