Customer Reviews
Learning Creativity for Children of All Ages - By: Donald Mitchell, 22 May 2004 
This book was one of the five that I most enjoyed reading to our four children when they were young. Upon rereading the book, I bgan to realize why I enjoyed it so much . . . as well as why they did.
Children begin with quite vivid imaginations, & education (and the socializing process) quickly discourage their imaginationsin favor of coloring between the lines (following the conformist rules). This wonderful book by Dr. Seuss extolls the creative process & liberates the child (and the parent) to use their imaginations. "THINK! You can think any THINK that you wish . . . Think of a race on a horse on a ball with a fish!" It's like getting a license to use your natural creativity.
The book encourages creativityin a variety of effective ways. As the above quote shows, juxtaposition (combined with wonderfully funny illustrations) can allow the child to see that words can be jumbled togetherin ways to create fantastic images. The book begins & ends with this method.
Through the book, the illustrations are drawn to highlight the unusual. Many different colors are combined,in odd ways, &in odd shapes.
Then, after the imagination is revved up a bit, Dr. Seuss begins to do mental pirouettes by introducing such creatures as GUFFS (fuzzy orange creatures with tails that have large furry balls along them them), SNUVS (yellow creatures wearing color mismatched gloves -- you can see how the name sometimes helps with the rhyming), BLOOGS (green, yellow, & blue creatures blowing byin the white sky above the black water), & ZONGS (with a tail that is 15 times as long as the body which winds among blue & pink mushrooms).
Of course, the visions are sometimes more literal: Kitty O'Sullivan Krauss diving into a balloon pool over her house.
I thought that the RINK-RINKER-FINK & the VIPPER of VIPP were especially wonderful inventions. They juxtapose many different conceptsin a particularly mind-liberating way.
If any book can overcome you tradition, misconception, & disbelief stalls, this one is it. By sharing it with your children while they are young, you can keep them from ever developing the stallsin the first place.
Learning Creativity for Children of All Ages - By: Donald Mitchell, 22 May 2004 This book was one of the five that I most enjoyed reading to our four children when they were young. Upon rereading the book, I bgan to realize why I enjoyed it so much . . . as well as why they did.
Children begin with quite vivid imaginations, & education (and the socializing process) quickly discourage their imaginationsin favor of coloring between the lines (following the conformist rules). This wonderful book by Dr. Seuss extolls the creative process & liberates the child (and the parent) to use their imaginations. "THINK! You can think any THINK that you wish . . . Think of a race on a horse on a ball with a fish!" It's like getting a license to use your natural creativity.
The book encourages creativityin a variety of effective ways. As the above quote shows, juxtaposition (combined with wonderfully funny illustrations) can allow the child to see that words can be jumbled togetherin ways to create fantastic images. The book begins & ends with this method.
Through the book, the illustrations are drawn to highlight the unusual. Many different colors are combined,in odd ways, &in odd shapes.
Then, after the imagination is revved up a bit, Dr. Seuss begins to do mental pirouettes by introducing such creatures as GUFFS (fuzzy orange creatures with tails that have large furry balls along them them), SNUVS (yellow creatures wearing color mismatched gloves -- you can see how the name sometimes helps with the rhyming), BLOOGS (green, yellow, & blue creatures blowing byin the white sky above the black water), & ZONGS (with a tail that is 15 times as long as the body which winds among blue & pink mushrooms).
Of course, the visions are sometimes more literal: Kitty O'Sullivan Krauss diving into a balloon pool over her house.
I thought that the RINK-RINKER-FINK & the VIPPER of VIPP were especially wonderful inventions. They juxtapose many different conceptsin a particularly mind-liberating way.
If any book can overcome you tradition, misconception, & disbelief stalls, this one is it. By sharing it with your children while they are young, you can keep them from ever developing the stallsin the first place.
Learning Creativity for Children of All Ages - By: Donald Mitchell, 22 May 2004 This book was one of the five that I most enjoyed reading to our four children when they were young. Upon rereading the book, I bgan to realize why I enjoyed it so much . . . as well as why they did.
Children begin with quite vivid imaginations, & education (and the socializing process) quickly discourage their imaginationsin favor of coloring between the lines (following the conformist rules). This wonderful book by Dr. Seuss extolls the creative process & liberates the child (and the parent) to use their imaginations. "THINK! You can think any THINK that you wish . . . Think of a race on a horse on a ball with a fish!" It's like getting a license to use your natural creativity.
The book encourages creativityin a variety of effective ways. As the above quote shows, juxtaposition (combined with wonderfully funny illustrations) can allow the child to see that words can be jumbled togetherin ways to create fantastic images. The book begins & ends with this method.
Through the book, the illustrations are drawn to highlight the unusual. Many different colors are combined,in odd ways, &in odd shapes.
Then, after the imagination is revved up a bit, Dr. Seuss begins to do mental pirouettes by introducing such creatures as GUFFS (fuzzy orange creatures with tails that have large furry balls along them them), SNUVS (yellow creatures wearing color mismatched gloves -- you can see how the name sometimes helps with the rhyming), BLOOGS (green, yellow, & blue creatures blowing byin the white sky above the black water), & ZONGS (with a tail that is 15 times as long as the body which winds among blue & pink mushrooms).
Of course, the visions are sometimes more literal: Kitty O'Sullivan Krauss diving into a balloon pool over her house.
I thought that the RINK-RINKER-FINK & the VIPPER of VIPP were especially wonderful inventions. They juxtapose many different conceptsin a particularly mind-liberating way.
If any book can overcome you tradition, misconception, & disbelief stalls, this one is it. By sharing it with your children while they are young, you can keep them from ever developing the stallsin the first place.
But can you think all the things that Dr. Seuss can think? - By: , 19 Mar 2004 "Life" magazine published a reportin May of 1954 about illiteracy among American school children. One of the key thingsin this article was that children were not inspired to read because their books were boring, which is to say the world of Dick, Jane & Spot. So it came to pass that Theodore Geisel's publisher sent him & a list of 400 words that had to be cut to 250 (because that was how many words it was believed a first grader could understand before their heads exploded or something), & then write a book. At this pointin the history of the world Geisel was best known as the creator of Gerald McBoing-Boing, an animated character for which he won an Oscar. The book, of course, was "The Catin the Hat," which used 220 of those words, & for the rest of his life Dr. Seuss wrote books that were part of the Beginner Books & Bright & Early Books series, which proudly allowed young kids to proclaim "I Can Read It All By Myself." Consequently, Dr. Seuss was one of the major forcesin American literacyin the last half of the 20th century.
But beyond that, Dr. Seuss was the personification of imagination for all those generations of children, & this particular legacy is embodied bestin his 1975 book "Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!" Toldin the distinctive verse style of Dr. Seuss, this book gets young readers to think about all the things then can think if only they try. The book is filled with the delightful creatures of Dr. Seuss's own fertile imagination, from the Guff & the Snuvs to the Bloogs & the Rink-Rinker-Fink. However, my favorite is the Jibboo: what would you do if you met one? After reading this delightful book beginning readers can either make up their own thinks or they can try out their imagination by thinking of what happens nextin these pictures, where strange creatures enjoy beautiful schlopp with a cherry on top or visiting the Vipper of Vipp. There is a reason why virtually every one of the books Dr. Seuss wrote are considered classics & it is due as much to the imagination that he displays on each & every page as it is to his ability to arrange 220 (or more) wordsin non-boring ways.
But can you think as many thinks as Dr. Seuss thinks? - By: , 14 Mar 2004 "Life" magazine published a reportin May of 1954 about illiteracy among American school children. One of the key thingsin this article was that children were not inspired to read because their books were boring, which is to say the world of Dick, Jane & Spot. So it came to pass that Theodore Geisel's publisher sent him & a list of 400 words that had to be cut to 250 (because that was how many words it was believed a first grader could understand before their heads exploded or something), & then write a book. At this pointin the history of the world Geisel was best known as the creator of Gerald McBoing-Boing, an animated character for which he won an Oscar. The book, of course, was "The Catin the Hat," which used 220 of those words, & for the rest of his life Dr. Seuss wrote books that were part of the Beginner Books & Bright & Early Books series, which proudly allowed young kids to proclaim "I Can Read It All By Myself." Consequently, Dr. Seuss was one of the major forcesin American literacyin the last half of the 20th century.
But beyond that, Dr. Seuss was the personification of imagination for all those generations of children, & this particular legacy is embodied bestin his 1975 book "Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!" Toldin the distinctive verse style of Dr. Seuss, this book gets young readers to think about all the things then can think if only they try. The book is filled with the delightful creatures of Dr. Seuss's own fertile imagination, from the Guff & the Snuvs to the Bloogs & the Rink-Rinker-Fink. However, my favorite is the Jibboo: what would you do if you met one? After reading this delightful book beginning readers can either make up their own thinks or they can try out their imagination by thinking of what happens nextin these pictures, where strange creatures enjoy beautiful schlopp with a cherry on top or visiting the Vipper of Vipp. There is a reason why virtually every one of the books Dr. Seuss wrote are considered classics & it is due as much to the imagination that he displays on each & every page as it is to his ability to arrange 220 (or more) wordsin non-boring ways.
