- Posts 23328
- Location Mobilism
- WRZ$
221.00
- Device Not Specified
Credit Frann Preston-Gannon, from original illustrations by Dr. Seuss. TM & © Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. 2015. All rights reserved.
In The New York Times Book Review, Maria Russo reviews Dr. Seuss’ “What Pet Should I Get?” Ms. Russo writes:
It was never released in Geisel’s lifetime, but now, more than two decades after his death in 1991, “What Pet Should I Get?” is being published. It’s happy news — first, because the book is, if not top-flight Seuss, a very good example of his particular genius for distilling both the spirit of his times and the timeless mind-set of children. With its galloping anapests, cockamamie creatures and kids off on an everyday adventure that turns hallucinogenic, this late arrival will slip easily into the collection that changed how Americans learn to read — Dr. Seuss books like “Green Eggs and Ham,” which mowed down the teacher-approved, intellectually inert Dick-and-Jane drivel that sucked the life out of early education in the 1950s. (They may as well all have been titled “Bunny, Bunny, Bunny,” as Geisel wrote in “How Orlo Got His Book,” a 1957 satirical piece published in the Book Review, in which he tried to wake Americans up to the urgent need to approach children’s reading in a new way.) “What Pet Should I Get?” will remind us, delightfully, that Dr. Seuss, over half a century ago, made learning to read an adventure, a club children would actually want to belong to. And, not least, he made reading aloud something parents, too, could reliably enjoy.
On this week’s podcast, Ms. Russo and Alexandra Alter, the Times’s publishing reporter, talk about Dr. Seuss; Jill Ciment discusses “The Hand That Feeds You”; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.