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That Christopher has the skills to be an Advanced Patriarchy Blamer at a very early age!
"But he said no." Indeed! Rock on with your bad self, Christopher.
Fabulous. I can't wait 'til kid gets a load of The Giving Tree.
I always hated that book when I was a kid for the same reason. He said no! Not a Suess fan at all.
I was recounting the book's basics to Ben (under protest—that book is for toddlers, he informs me). "He said he didn't want any."
Of course, every parent reserves the right to encourage her kid to try some food, even if the kid has said 20 times that he doesn't want it.
Best out-of-context quote from Ben today: "I think I spent my $5 on the vibrating machine." Another satisfied Honeysuckle Shop customer! (Actually, he was talking about a vibrating massage chair at Caesarland, where his day camp went on a field trip.)
Yeah, though I liked Seuss's older books (If I Ran the Zoo, the Sneetches, Bartholomew Cubbins, Nertle the Turtle) I've always rather disliked the ones aimed at younger audiences, such as Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, and very much the Cat in the Hat.
Seeing other kids break the rules wasn't fun for me as a child - it made me _nervous_.
NO MEANS NO.
Yep, I had the same problems with books like that when I was a kid. That cat was a JERK ("Hi! I'm gonna run around your house and break shit! Won't that be fun!")
I thought Willy Wonka was a right bastard, too. What kind of weirdo sets up nearly fatal candy booby-traps for kids?
I loved me some Fox in Socks, though.
Wait until he gets a hold of Beatrix Potter. Try explaining to him that her paintings of ducks and bunnies looked realistic because she had dead animals around the house so that her paintings would be anatomically accurate.
Buddy loved Tom Kitten, although he was always getting into trouble. Hmmm... maybe that's why he grew up to be such a smartass.
(Would he be moved by a very literal and earnest explanation like this?) He's right that these books are very silly and perverse stories...showing people doing bad things, or showing total insanity... but that's ok, because Dr. Seuss means them as excuses to enjoy the sounds of the words. It's just playing with words, rather than storytelling. The fun of reading them is just in the rhythm and rhyme. He must know some nonsense songs like that, right (little lambsie divey etc)?
You know, I've always felt that way about GE&H, even while enjoying the wordplay. But I was not able to articulate it as well as Christopher. No means no, Sam I Am!
I had some friends who performed GEAH during their senior theatre recital with a total drug spin. It was freakin' brilliant, although all the profs were mortified.
Fox in Socks rocks (weeee). The Boy was in one of those book programs where they send you a Dr. Seuss-ish book every month, and that one came on 9/11, and for about 10 minutes that night, it saved us.
How about 'Hello cat, you need a hat'? Much the same premise. (Try this hat, cat. No. How about this one? No.) With a different ending, more or less. (The cat does not get a hat; the little girl moves on to offering it shoes.)
This was a favourite of mine as a child.
That's why I hated that story as a kid, too. I think it also had something to do with my annoying little brother, who wouldn't leave you alone.
I wish I could say that he's grown up into a fine young man, but no. He's still that annoying.
Huh. I was never that bothered by Green Eggs and Ham, which is kind of amazing, since my parents invoked it whenever I didn't want to try a new food. Which was often. The Cat on the Hat, on the other hand, stressed me out a little, because of the worrying possibility that it invokes of getting into trouble.
Ev was absolutely appalled that I owned not one, but TWO copies of "The Giving Tree" ... or what she calls, "the worst parenting book ever written." When I said, "but I love The Giving Tree!" she gave me the one raised eyebrow and reminded me that my son spent one Christmas in Juvenile Detention, after culminating a particularly nasty year with putting his fist through my bedroom door when I said "no".
I'm pretty sure he got his debating skill from GEAH and his belief that it would work from me ... The Fucking Giving Tree.
Come to think of it, I haven't heard an unembellished story out of that boy since he discovered "And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street". Damn that Sueuss!!
Oooh. I do think The Giving Tree is deeply sick, now that it's been mentioned. Perhaps the sickest of the books I was exposed to in my childhood.
I like the analysis offered in the Wikipedia article on "The Giving Tree." Alas, the entry on "Green Eggs and Ham" lacks any thoughtful analysis of the themes Christopher identified as problematic.
I read it growing up. My children read it, too. But come to think of it, it does seem pretty ridiculous now.
I always thought it a story to get kids to eat their vegetables...
Someone once described the tree in The Giving Tree as "a masochist who, quite predictably, has raised a sociopath." I think that's spot on.
Had the same as above-mentioned problems with Seuss...and my mom was worried that my then failing language skill would suffer. Took a few more years, and my sister had me jump straight into Tolkein. Wacky.
My hubs just listened to this and said I'm ridiculous, but enjoyed the Rev. Jackson memory lane. Thanks!
oh, and this whole discussion reminded us of the Lewis C.K. conversation with his kid over cereal.
Heh. I have a younger (not so little any more) brother named Sam, so GEAH was a big fave at my house growing up. And my kids laugh and try to picture Uncle Sam in the story.
According to the biography "Dr Seuss and Mr Geisel," GEAH was written to win a bet requiring a full-length children's book with no more than 50 different words.
Both GEAH and TCATH drove me nuts as a kid, for the reasons stated.
Also Curious George -- After like the 6th one, I was like "OMG, George, get it through your head already! When The Man In The Big Yellow Hat tells you not to do something, don't freakin' do it!"
I love "The Cat in the Hat". The Cat is, basically, a toddler: he says "Look at me! Look at me! Look at me now!" just before falling down and breaking things, if you tell him to stop he says, essentially, "Won't!"; he can't put himself in the position of another person and figure out that the other person doesn't like what he's doing. I love this book because it's such a relief to read about someone who's more destructive than my own kids. Besides, it's written in such beautiful three-beat feet.
The sequel, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back", is neither so metrically clean nor so engaging. That Cat is just irritating. He didn't grow up well.
Of course Willy Wonka was a right bastard; what's a good children's book without mayhem, potential bloodshed and punishment for the unworthy? Roald Dahl's stories for adults were considerably nastier (look at "Pig", for example, or "Man from the South". On second thought, don't look at "Pig"). If your children do enjoy Roald Dahl's children's stuff, I don't recommend handing over the adult stuff unless you happen to enjoy screaming nightmares.
Oh, I'm not alone! I always thought most of the Seuss books were creepy and annoying and a little scary. All those creatures with pointy features! All the naughtiness!
Beacoup dittos on "The Giving Tree." I even performed in a sort of avant-garde outdoor play of it, and it was creepy then, too. (But the director was a hottie, so that made it okay.) It's awful! Let's train our kids to be selfish little bastards while we waste away and are forgotten, which is what we deserve for getting old and having so little to give you anymore. Blech.
There's some other children's "classic" that I just hated... it might be "I Love You Forever" or some similar thing. And we conveniently lost our copy of "Chicka Chicka Boom," which came very highly recommended but for some reason irritated the crap out of me.
And who mentioned Beatrix Potter? Holy sh:t that woman had issues. We were given a lovely boxed set of the books for Benjamin's birth, and were horrified when we got to the page where somebunny's daddy chased him until he could beat him with his belt.
Those ended up in the donation pile, too.
P.S. Christopher is a genius. You are in SO much trouble. Or, rather, his teachers are.
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