I've finally read some Dr Seuss books!

Having spent far too much money recently on buying some more books for the kids, I finally got to let them pick what they wanted to read from a nice new pile (of second-hand books, mainly - my bank account is already crying a little!). I was quite surprised to find that Caitlin and Lewis both went for a Dr Seuss book; Caitlin for The Cat in the Hat and Lewis for I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!. I wasn't surprised for any bad reasons - it's just that I'd also bought Giraffes Can't Dance!, one of the World Book Day books this year, and I thought Caitlin would have been straight onto that one, seeing as she loves giraffes and dancing! I think on these books they loved the illustration on the front, and might even have been a little aware of the cat in the hat - I'm not sure! The illustrations in both books were awesome and really engaging.


The Cat in the Hat, by Dr Seuss
Published by HarperCollins
Amazon.co.uk/Amazon.com

When the Cat in the Hat steps in on the mat, Sally and her brother are in for a roller-coaster ride of havoc and mayhem.

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I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!, by Dr Seuss

Published by HarperCollins

Amazon.co.uk/Amazon.com

This celebration of the joys of reading encourages us to open our eyes and take pride in our reading, so we'll learn lots of stuff and end up succeeding!

We started off with The Cat in the Hat, which went down really well with the children. They identified really strongly with the idea of the naughty cat and things 1 and 2, and were able to answer questions at the end about whether they would have told their mum if something like that had happened to them. For the record, they would have kept quiet! Lewis especially loved the idea of being able to carry all those items - I had great fun getting him to find certain things.

We then went on to I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!. This one started off okay - I was able to test the children on their colours at the beginning, They also liked trying to close one eye at a time! I had to stop a little for that bit, seeing as I can only see out of one eye, but they loved trying - Caitlin could only manage to close her left eye, haha! After this point, it went downhill though. Lewis lost attention, and while Caitlin was listening, she didn't seem all that engaged with it. I think this is down to a couple of reasons. Firstly, for books aimed at their age range, I did find them fairly long, so expecting Lewis, particularly, to sit through 2 of them was probably asking a little much. Then, particularly with I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!, I thought there were possibly a few too many American references for them to grasp. They barely know about English geography, let alone being able to grasp Mississippi!

I had a quick scan of blogs talking about Dr Seuss and found this one, which gave a list of good Seuss links. There were 2 that I think Caitlin and Lewis will love - Seussville and The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That!. I'm babysitting for an hour or so tomorrow, so I'll probably try them out. I've also recently discovered the Me Books app, which features loads of Ladybird Classics, and is really interactive. I can't wait to see if it manages to keep them quiet!