If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives... But up close a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. - Ursula K. LeGuin

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Dr Seuss: Ideological Role Model

I recently realized that Dr. Seuss has guided both mine and b's lives in complimentary but very different ways. At a tender young age b was strongly influenced by this. In fact on one of our early dates we were browsing in Barnes & Noble and he read it to me and then wept.
"I speak for the trees. Let them grow. Let them grow.
But nobody listens too much, don't you know."
It is no real surprise then that b is an environmentalist.

The Seuss story that got me was this one, as it aptly displays the insanity of racism and prejudice with an added bonus of poking fun at capitalism. And all these years later, social justice and equality are still my burning issues. I love the trees and I'm 100% behind the green movement, but ultimately it is people who do it for me. My other favorite Seuss as a youngin' was Horton Hears A Who, cause
"a person is a person, no matter how small."
Which Dr. Seuss story speaks to you and why?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

that should be a link to 'The Lorax' in case anyone was wondering.

Anonymous said...

I love love love The Sneetches! It's my favorite to this day.

Although, the one about nuclear proliferation and mutually assured destruction, The Butter Battle Book, is pretty good as well.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I love Dr. Suess too! I just loooove that he knows kids "get" it. Rather than denying that problems exist, he invites them to be a part of the solution. We read Horton a lot. We've read the Lorax but the kids had a hard time sitting through the whole thing. Ava might be old enough, now. Did I tell you that her elementary school has a full time ecology teacher & an acre of garden? In Chicago? Awesome.

Anonymous said...

Ah!!!! This post touches my heart!! Dr. Seuss was a genius, wasn't he? I can't even begin to describe how much a part of my life his books have always been.

You have named the exact book I would have chosen--"Horton Hears a Who." Of course, I love the green stories, too. I love how Dr. Seuss teaches lessons without feeling overly preachy. Some children's books I've read seem to lose their creativity when dealing with these subjects, and the "fun" gets lost in the message. Dr. Suess could do both.

Beautiful post! I could talk about this one for hours:)