Who doesn’t like Dr Seuss? Who doesn’t owe at least a little bit of their childhood to his wonderful books? Parents love reading them, kids love reading them and the world is always a better, more interesting place after reading one. While The Cat in the Hat, like the Cat himself, takes a lot of the limelight, there is a whole treasure chest of lesser-known but no less-loved Dr Seuss favourites.
One of mine is I Wish That I Had Duck Feet, a story about accepting, enjoying, yourself exactly as you are. Who wouldn’t occasionally wish they had something a little more exotic than ordinary human stuff? Perhaps antlers for hanging caps on, duck feet for splashing in water, an animal tail so long you could jump rope with it or even a whale spout on your head? The things you could do!
I wish I had a whale spout.
A whale spout on my head!
When days get hot
It would be good
To spout my spout in school.
And then Miss Banks
would say “Thanks! Thanks!
You keep our school so cool.
(I still remember, as a child, being read the story and when Dad came to reading those lines ‘Thanks! Thanks! You keep our school so cool’, my brother and sister and I would all join in, shouting the line.)
But our hero discovers all of his wished-for additions have some draw-back and often ones that attract the unwanted attention of the local bully Big Bill Brown. So, after a typically Seussian climax that I won’t give away, our hero decides that he will be himself.
And that is why
I think that I
just wish to be like ME.
What’s not to love? Discover or re-discover it today. What’s your favourite Dr Seuss?
