What Pet Should I Get by Dr Seuss
| What Pet Should I Get by Dr Seuss | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Sam Tyler
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| Summary: A newly discovered Dr Seuss book has been published and you lucky lot get to read it. This fun tale about some siblings finding a new pet fits seamlessly into his cannon, but is there a reason it was left unpublished for so long? | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 48 | Date: January 2016 |
| Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9780008170783 | |
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What would you do, if you found in the shed,
A brand new book, from an author unfortunately dead?
Would you leave it alone as a work unfinished,
Or release it anyway and make a reputation blemished?
Dr. Seuss is a name to conjure with, especially for American children, but I discovered him in a damp village library in the North West of England. Here was a children's author who would take the reader on a flight of fancy into a world that you thought adults could no longer even think of. Cat in the Hat or Yertle the Turtle are long time favourites in my house, so when an undiscovered book was found I was happy to read it. However, why was the book unpublished? Seuss had a reputation as a perfectionist and perhaps this book did not meet is exacting standards? This appears to be the case.
When a young brother and sister are sent to the pet shop by their father, they are under strict instructions that they can buy any pet, but only one. Will they buy a dog or a cat? Or perhaps in true Seussian style they will buy the creature with 17 foot long legs and feathers for a face?
In many ways What Pet Should I Get is vintage Seuss. The story is told in rhyming couplets and it takes you on an increasingly absurd adventure into flights of fancy. The illustrations are also reminiscent of Seuss original work. The publishers have taken the writer/illustrator's original vision and filled in the blanks, colourised it and then printed it. If you were to slip the book into the rest of the cannon, you would not notice anything different, unless you had read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.
What Pet uses the same children and some of the same ideas that eventually went on to become Fish. The book all about underwater animals is probably my favourite by Seuss as it lists bizarre and fascinating animals. What Pet is far more mundane than this as it is full of mostly normal animals, but given the Seuss look and feel. The special edition of the book finishes with a biog of the author and also an explanation of the book's origins. Here you read that perhaps What Pet was not released because Seuss did not think it quite good enough. This is a little harsh, as it is still solid fare, just not near the best of his work.
Fans of Seuss will still get a lot out of this story, especially if they buy the special edition. Not only do you get the extra blurb, but also a lovely hardback that fits into a case. This is almost as much a collector's item as it is a storybook. Children will enjoy reading What Pet with you, but may find it a little bland, especially compared to the very best that Seuss had to offer. One mainly for the completists.
There are loads of modern authors who have been inspired by Dr Seuss' absurdist style including Dog on Stilts by James Thorp and Angus Mackinnon and Super Happy Magic Forest by Matty Long.
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You can read more book reviews or buy What Pet Should I Get by Dr Seuss at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy What Pet Should I Get by Dr Seuss at Amazon.com.
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