#12 Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (1960) 86 points Because, “Try them, you may like them,” are words to live by. – DaNae Leu One of the great questions of childhood is: What’s with parents putting bizarre items on your plate and expecting you to eat them? Dr. Seuss’s answer to the question [...]
#33 The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (1971) 53 points A timeless classic. I haven’t seen the movie, and I don’t plan to; it’s one of those cases in which the book is perfect just as it is. – Melissa Fox because “UNLESS someone like you / cares a whole awful lot, / nothing is going [...]
#36 The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (1957) 50 points Adore the story and it brought reading to an access level for beginning readers. – Mary Friedrichs The poor cat didn’t make it onto the list last time because I wasn’t including easy readers. Now he bursts onto the scene, hat askew, intentions [...]
#61 How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss (1957) 30 points Yes, that’s two Dr. Seuss books on my top ten list. In all honesty, I had trouble not including Horton Hears a Who as well. Between the Lorax’s anti-capitalist, pro-environment stance, Horton’s anti-racism, and this book’s anti-consumerism, Dr. Seuss taught me most of [...]
#63 The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss (1961) 30 points This book is a perfect sampler of Dr. Seuss stories. The title story and “The Zax” provide some of his powerful and beautifully simple fables. They’re quirky, they’re strange, they roll off the tongue, and they leave you with one simple message that [...]
And by “edition” I mean that my April Fool’s joke of the day is that I’m not doing anything that has even the slightest connection to April Fool’s Day. Surprise! Don’t worry. You’ll see plenty of stuff around the web to fool you ah-plenty. Remember the day. Now sit back for a treat. Bloody ‘ell. [...]
It was kind of a kooky idea, I admit it. I’ve seen plenty of sites where artists will reinterpret someone like Maurice Sendak in their own styles. What I wanted was something a little different. I wanted to see what would happen if great children’s book illustrators illustrated one another. If a Lobel illustrated a [...]
How does an artist learn to find their own style? By copying the masters, of course. Could the same be true of children’s illustrators? Haven’t a clue. But it gave me a crazy notion the other day that I’m hankering to try out. During the release of the Where the Wild Things Are movie a [...]
Okey-doke. So today we begin with an addendum. I believe that it was not long ago that with the announcement of the new Printz Award blog Someday My Printz Will Come I mentioned its existence without acknowledging that there may have been another and previously existing Printz Award blog out there. Well slap my sides [...]
Thanks to @doseofsnark for the link. Ah, Banned Books Week. It only comes but once a year (as opposed to banning books which appears to be a year long occupation). For the one stop shopping round-up everyone needs, bookshelves of doom has compiled just a top notch collection of links for the occasion. One of [...]
As you may have heard, last week author William Sleator passed away. I met him once during the Midwinter ALA Conference in Philadelphia. He was part of an Abrams brunch in which librarians munched on food and spoke to various authors. I was pleased to get Mr. Sleator’s autograph on a book for a friend [...]
I guess that there’s a mild irony to the fact that while I’ll write up anyone’s literary event if I’m able to attend, if I help to throw the darn things myself then suddenly I clam up. For example, with the possible exception of the blogger panel I had two years ago, I don’t think [...]
Nice movie poster, right? Wouldn’t look too shabby in your local cineplex. Well, don’t get too excited quite yet. It seems that Sean Astin (a.k.a. Sam from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) is raising money to start production on this film, to be shot in Denmark. Lowry reports on the process, though she is [...]
I’m not telling you anything new by bringing this up now, but for those of you who may yet be unaware, the great Brian Jacques of the Redwall books passed away last weekend. I only had the pleasure of meeting Brian once at an event at the Campbell Apartment, and he was charming. I determined [...]
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