18-22. Five by Dr. Seuss

I read these Dr. Seuss classics to see if they might be suitable for my Korean students, but I don't think there's a way to incorporate them into class and keep the students engaged. I enjoy Dr. Seuss, and so do most kids I know, but communicating via webcam is already so difficult that I think trying to read, show pictures, and explain the nonsense words would be too challenging.

Anyway, here's the quintet:

Hop on Pop brings back a lot of memories from my childhood. I remember, especially, my dad reading this book and Dr. Seuss' ABC (containing the unforgettable Zizzerzazzerzuzz) to my younger brother and sister. I remember his feigned alarm at the suggestion to "hop on pop." I don't even know how else to describe the memories--I haven't looked at this book in years, and I didn't remember much of the content, but when I read the text and saw the photos they were immediately familiar from many, many readings in my childhood.

The same thing happened with the next title, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. I didn't remember this as a book my family owned, and it's possible we borrowed it from the library instead, but the seven-humped wump of Gump certainly figured into my childhood.

Owning a copy of Green Eggs and Ham is a personal dream come true. Yes, sometimes I'm easily pleased. I recall loving this book--several teachers read it to us in school, I think--and begging, pleading for a copy of my own, but my mom steadfastly refused. "We can't buy every book you like," she told me. I'd say this lesson fell on deaf ears except that somewhere deep in my subconscious, the opposite compulsion lodged: to buy every single book I might possibly, conceivably, if I'm ever stranded on a desert island without anything else, want to read. Sam-I-Am, maybe it was you who planted the first seed of my bibliomania....

Fox in Socks, which I read several years ago to my friend Nora in Savannah, is not a book to read silently, but if you do, it'll twist your brain as much as the alliteration tricks your tongue.

The Cat in the Hat, perhaps Dr. Seuss' most iconic creation, was never one of my favorite characters. Having reread the book--which I'm sure I'd read or had read to me as a child, but which I don't recall nearly as well as the first three titles in this entry--I still don't quite understand the allure. Sure, the Cat is naughty and fun, but subversive mischief resonates throughout Dr. Seuss' universe. I find many of his other titles and inventions far more appealing.

I thoroughly enjoyed my foray into whimsical, rhyming, absurd, manic Seuss-land.