Showing posts with label picture book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label picture book. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Dr. Seuss - Green Eggs and Ham (1960)

This is on my Best 100 list of children's books to read.

Anyone who has a little brother (or sister) will immediately recognise Sam-I-Am's pestering ways and know that until you give in the torment never ends!  I really enjoyed the rhyming and repetitive nature of the storyline. It would make it easy to read, yet feel like you'd achieved something great (considering how long the book is) if you were a child. I enjoyed it as an adult.

Yet, no amount of pestering would ever get me to try green eggs and ham, particularly after they'd been waved under the funnel of a steam train and dipped in the ocean. Yuck! The pictures are interesting, but it's the words that make the book. They stay in your head like a song-and-dance act, jiggling around all happy and bright. That's the best thing words can ever do.

Maurice Sendak - Where the Wild Things Are (1963)

This is on my Best 100 list of children's books to read.

I never read it as a child and that's just sad because it is so much fun! I want to dress in a wolf suit and sail away to a magical island forest with lots of impossible creatures who make me Queen!!! I've always wanted to be an autocrat and have a wild rumpus, making lots of noise and mayhem.

The pictures are beautiful. My favourite is when his room has been transformed - "his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around...".

The book teaches imagination and how you can have fun, even when you're alone - well, until you get hungry.