Dr. Seuss

This is basically one of those word list books. Apparently Dr. Seuss wrote them, too. It's kind of on the same lines as "I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words" except Seuss's word list rhymes, which is about the only way you can get through one of these without falling asleep.

If you take it from the perspective that a child will likely take it, I'm probably reading too much into it. A child will look at it and think, "Oh, there's a lot of food I don't like, and my parents sometimes resort to ridiculous lengths in order to get me to eat food that I claim to not like, and it sometimes turns out that I like it," so I think they'll identify with that. I guess the important part is that the main character does like it.

There's nothing really to it. It's enjoyable and light. My kids enjoy making funny noises. Silly things are attractive to children. The imaginative, whimsical aspects of this book are great. There's no real message to it, but it might encourage children to use their imagination and be more descriptive of things.

It really supports the idea of swallowing your pride and apologizing, accepting the blame for something. I really like that message.

It starts out having a point and then kind of loses track of it halfway through. It's a strange ending to have in something that seemed like it was going to have a moral.

It's a story that gets more and more complex as it goes on, but then fizzles out at the end. The dual messages are rather in conflict.

I want to like this book, because it has a good message, but I can't get past the way the parents implicitly treat Gerald.