Green Eggs and Ham is a great starter book, but IMHO the greatest of Dr Seuss's many great books is Oh, the Places You'll Go!. His mastery of "simple" English is stunning, kids find it enthralling, and the messages are surprisingly deep.
When I graduated high school my English teacher sat the 35 or so of us in my small class. He sat us down like kindergarteners and read us this book. It’s one of my fondest memories.
“Cerf bet me fifty bucks I couldn’t write a book using only 50 words,” he said later. “I did it to show I could.” This encapsulated the lesson I learned from the recent Michael Jordan documentary - take silly bets and trivial insults seriously and you can be driven to do great things.
Gee, just 5 minutes ago I was thinking on how Werner Herzog bet Errol Morris that Morris wouldn't finish the documentary he'd started, or Herzog would eat his shoe. Now that is a friend, and a great motivating bet. And I loved Gates of Heaven.
"After a few unproductive months, he happened to read a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle that read, "450 Dead Pets Going To Napa Valley". Morris left for Napa Valley and began working on the film that would become his first feature, Gates of Heaven, which premiered in 1978. Herzog had said he would eat his shoe if Morris completed the documentary. After the film premiered, Herzog publicly followed through on the bet by cooking and eating his shoe, which was documented in the short film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe by Les Blank. ...Critic Roger Ebert was and remained a champion of the film, including it on his all-time top ten best films list."
After 10 years he has built up quite a repertoire, and it's starting to get rarer to run across a quote he hasn't covered.
The primary lesson is that almost every famous quotation has been misattributed, inevitably to someone more famous. It's surprisingly unusual to find a famous quote that the famous person actually said.
I'm afraid Churchill is very much included. He didn't say "up with which I will not put", he didn't say "I am drunk but you are ugly and in the morning I shall be sober", he didn't say "if I were your husband I'd drink that poison", and so on. He didn't say most of the best Churchill lines. Lincoln didn't say most of the best Lincoln lines either. Same with Mark Twain, Einstein, and so on.
I often battle an odd insecurity about taking too long to do things. I've taken some time to write this comment, for example, and I can't help but wonder how long all these other comments took to write -- How normal do I compare? If I'm slower than average, is there something wrong with me, and is there something wrong with that? Surely, I tell myself, I must be focusing on the wrong things, and my time would be spent more productively elsewhere.
I once thought it was an issue of intelligence, but my wife has helped me see the careful thought I put into every word, every stroke of the pen, every movement I make. The time I take is deliberate, purposeful. The issue I've recently faced is justifying the time spent to create a certain quality of art and work.
It feels quite normalizing to read about Dr. Seuss and his year-long struggle to create this book. Inspirational, even. Look at all the joy this man has brought into the world. Look at how his time spent has served everyone well.
Look at the fun he had along the way.
You can't quantify that against time. If you find a way, perhaps you shouldn't.
The newer Dr. Seuss books feel like they have a fraction of the effort put into them. Sometimes a couple sentences seem like ones written by the original Dr. Seuss but then they decided it was too hard and just gave up on quality.
For me the genius of "green eggs and ham" is that you read it to your kid at about the time they become more picky with their food. So the book is a lesson too.
That lesson can backfire. When my father decided to treat me to "green eggs and ham" on my birthday thinking I'd be thrilled. But in order to mix in the food coloring he needed to chop the ham into pieces and scramble the eggs. Because it didn't match the image of whole ham and unbroken yolks, I hated it and threw a tantrum. I was quite the problem child.
Semi-related, my favorite cheese is Swiss because it has holes in it, and that's how cheese is portrayed in comics.
We had some luck by serving the food family style and having them serve themselves a bit of everything. Its easier to try when it wasn't forced on you.
Also, serving the same thing many times over (not necessarily frequently) helped too - extended exposure.
My kids are all picky eaters but they all love broccoli, I'll take that as a win.
That one was first and I think the best. Novelty of the thing I guess.
I am not as tempted to use that as a lesson, but this morning we had our "creepy stalker child" moment.
It's weird. When parents watch kids sleep they think "Aww, aren't they cute..."
but when the kids watch the parents sleep it's "...Holy motherfucker!!! ... oh, don't do that to me kiddo."
Eat the food he won't touch and exaggerate how good it tastes. If he doesn't want it after that, no sweat, otherwise it may become a power contest where he's asserting his independence (as he should be). You can also try giving a choice between "this green thing" or "that green thing".
For the record, my 10 year old self actually made green eggs.
I was trying to make scrambled eggs. I put some Cayenne pepper in. I dumped a bunch. I realized it was hot. I had heard that mint would make food taste less hot. So I dumped in more and more and more and more.
Eventually it turned green. But didn't stop being waaay too hot to my 10 year old self. (I'm sure that my 50 year old self would find it mild.)
I learnt to read from this book.
It had been read to me so many times I knew every word,
and while watching along, the change from `i am sam` to `sam i am` is where it all clicked.
I came across an old copy of Come Over to My House which we have now read _many_ times. It is nice to have an accessible cross cultural theme where the characters actually interact with each other.
At our local library newer books sometimes make an attempt but mostly limit themselves to token depictions of a head coverings, black kids, and wheelchairs.
I hope even the somewhat sanitized recent edition will have the staying power of the other more well known stories.
"I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you. Thank you, Sam-I-Am."
At this point, the character has realized that his quite firm refusal is having no effect. Growing weary of being ignored, he makes a show of capitulation and eats, exclaiming faux appreciation to Sam for his efforts.
After this episode, he never eats green eggs nor ham again. In adulthood, he would often think back to this moment with regret for having failed to stand up for himself.
I’ve always been profoundly “creeped out” by Dr Seuss’ books—the text and the illustrations, now as much as when I was a kid and part of the target demographic.
Here's the text, but the original illustrated version is so much better: https://www.poetrygrrrl.com/oh-the-places-youll-go-by-dr-seu...