befus's Full Review: Dr. Seuss - Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
Think of birthdays with red punch
and birthdays with cake;
Think of books you can read
and fun things you can make!
Think of libraries, children,
the cat in the hat.
Think of dear Seuss' birthday...
just think about that!
I penned the above lines the day after my daughter attended a birthday party for Dr. Seuss at our local library just a few weeks ago. Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) that imaginative and prolific author who gave the world such wonderful children's books as The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, has long been a favorite of librarians and teachers. He passed away in 1991, but ever since the celebration of his centennial birthday (March 2, 2004) libraries seem delighted to keep on celebrating his memory and his books. I know that almost all the branch libraries in our county and the one next to us continue to throw "Seuss parties" sometime during March every year.
We had a ton of fun at Seuss' birthday celebration this year. That's because, in the past few months, my almost six year old has become a true fan of his zany, colorful books full of rollicking rhymes and odd (sometimes downright bizarre) imaginative creatures. One of her very favorites right now, and the book that inspired my bit of Seuss-like doggerel above, is Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!, originally published in 1975.
Like other Seuss books, this one contains fantastical creatures and rhymes. Almost all of his books contain some high flights of fancy, but this one feels especially fun precisely because he celebrates imagination itself. Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! is what it sounds like: a book celebrating all the marvelous things you can think about, or (in Seuss' wonderful phrase) "think up." And while no one can really "out-think" the imaginative Dr. himself, his imagination does a great job of sparking the imagination of the children who read and listen to his stories.
One element I love about Dr. Seuss books is the way they often start out small and quiet, and then build...and build and build...to a zany and imaginative pitch. It's almost like the first pages are the layers of a cake which he spends the remainder of the book exuberantly frosting with all kinds of odd colors and flourishes. Oh The Thinks... is no exception. It has a quiet beginning, encouraging readers to think about things that...well, aren't really that odd or out of the ordinary:
You can think up some birds. That's what you can do. You can think about yellow or think about blue...
Of course, true to Seuss form, the illustrations that accompany the simple beginning are already imaginative and strange, giving you a hint that you should hold onto your hat because things are just going to get wilder. The birds pictured here are Seuss-birds, meaning odd yellow creatures that look a little bit like ducks and a little bit like birds you've never seen before. They're all dressed in matching blue sweaters and walking with their noses in the air. The horse on the next page (yes, another supposedly ordinary creature...though no creature is really ordinary, is it?) looks more like a long-haired reindeer than a real horse. That's fitting fitting since he's prancing through a forest of what looks like candy canes.
But from page three....whee! Hold on tight, and imagine! The made-up creatures and objects fly thick and fast: a guff, a schlopp, snuvs (wearing gloves), bloogs, and a place called Na-Nupp, which has three moons. That's just for starters. What you have to love about Seuss is that he's never at a loss for words. When he runs out of words, or when his sing-songy rhymes push him into a corner, he invents one. Which might feel like cheating, except he really invents them, drawing with great care to show us just what snuvs, bloogs, and zongs, these creatures of his imagination, look like.
Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! is part of the "I Can Read it All By Myself" Beginner Books published by Random House. They're the hardbacks with the logo of the famous Cat in the Hat in the top right hand corner. I do love that Seuss' books in this series truly encourage reading, partly because of their sheer fun factor, partly because of their rhymes, and partly (and this is no small thing) because Dr. Seuss chose his words so carefully. His invented words might be zany, but his regular words are usually short and common, repeated often enough that beginning readers can sound them out once or twice and then repeat them with confidence as they continue to appear. In this book, repeated phrases "you can think" or "think of" or "you can wonder" or "think and wonder" keep the rhythm of the book moving along, and keep young readers, like my daughter, really reading.
I do think these Beginner Books by Dr. Seuss really do work best for children who are old enough to be "early readers." Not that they don't sound terrific as read alouds (and they're tremendous fun to read aloud! a plus for parents and teachers) but I think younger preschool age children are not always quite ready for the imaginative flights of fancy. It takes a while for children to get to know the real world, and to develop significant language about the real world. Once they've developed to a certain level, then imaginative play and word-play about the world begin to make more sense to them.
I know in my daughter's case, Seuss books mostly seemed to go right over her head until sometime in this past year. She might smile over some of the rhymes, but she didn't ask for repeated reads. Now that's she five-almost-six, she finds them terrifically funny. She reads them again and again, and often memorizes her favorite parts. And why is it so many things go to the Right? You can think about THAT until Saturday night is the phrase from this book we've heard from her time and again!
Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! is a worthy member of Dr. Seuss' weird and fantastic canon of children's books. It's an imaginative tribute to imagination itself.
~befus, 2008
Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!
by Dr. Seuss
Beginner Books, Random House, 1975
ISBN 0394831292
BA mad outpouring of made-up words, and intriguing ideas. \Contains one of Dr. Seusss solid-gold morals, the joy of letting ones imagination rip\.--Th...More at Christianbook.com
Concepts - Words Juvenile / Children's Fiction - Relates in verse some of the unusual thinks you can think if only you try. - Oh, the Thinks You Can T...More at Barnes and Noble
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