Surprisingly, I don't really recall liking too many Dr. Seuss books as a child. One of his books that I do remember reading with my mom often is Horton Hatches the Egg. I'm not sure where my mom bought our copy, but she probably found it at a garage sale or maybe she got it for free from the store. If I remember correctly, the paperback copy we owned had a mark on the cover indicating that it was part of a promotion for Crest/Prell/Wondra. Our copy suffered some wear from the frequent readings. I'm not sure if my mom still has our copy, but if it was still in good condition it looks like it would be worth more than many of the normal editions because of it's rarity. Who would guess a once free book would have any worth? Go figure. Horton Hatches the Egg is one of Dr. Seuss's earlier works, first published in 1940. In the book, Horton agrees to sit on a Mazie's (a lazy bird) egg while she goes off on a "short" vacation. He faithfully sits on the egg through the rain and snow and kept on, even though the other animals teased him and people made him part of a circus act.
Horton is an extremely lovable character. Readers can easily sympathize with him. The witty, rhyming verses in this book are top notch, showing Seuss's genius way with words. The book does contain an image of hunters with guns, so sensitive children may get a little frightened at this part. Several moral themes run through the book including responsibility, perseverance and keeping your word. In an Anchorage Daily News article from 1978, Seuss says that the idea for Horton came while he was working in his studio one day and the wind blew a picture of an elephant on top of another piece of paper where he had drawn a tree.
"I meant what I said / And I said what I meant.... / An elephant's faithful / One hundred per cent!"
In that same article he remarks, "Teaching a child to read is a family setup. It's the business of having books around the house, not forcing them. Parents should have 20 books stacked on tables or set around the living room. The average kid will pick one up, find something interesting. And pretty soon he's reading." Horton Hatches the Egg is on top of one of our piles right now!
We made Horton Handprint Elephants for a corresponding craft. I saw the idea for the handprint elephants on the Learning 4 Fun blog and we added a tree, nest and egg to complete Horton inspired pictures. They turned out pretty cute.
Related links, activities, printables:Seuss Egg to Go [pdf] - Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose
Paper Plate Elephant - FreeKidsCrafts.com
Connect the Dots to Horton [pdf] - Seussville.com
Horton's Coloring Page [pdf] - Seussville.com
Everyone's an Elephant [pdf] - Seussville.com
. A barefoot little girl helps her mother in a cheery garden by watering and weeding the plants. All the while, she fantasies about her ideal garden. 
This book introduces the main characters -- a little girl named Mandy and her panda friend, Pandy. They converse using short, basic phrases like, 
, helps children learn the numbers one through ten in Chinese. Mandy and Pandy use the numbers in short sentences to describe things they see while on a walk. For instance, the page discussing number nine reads, 
(book 3) is formatted a little differently than the first two. In this book, Mandy and Pandy speak to each other using complete sentences and discuss their flight and visit to China. Together they see the capital of China, Beijing, the walk along the Great Wall of China, view cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Xi'an and a mountain called Changbai. Four different people narrate the book, two men provide the voice for Pandy (Chris Lin and Jerry Xu) and two women provide the voice for Mandy (Michelle Shulman and Jiao Jing).
(Book 4). Corresponding with this year's Chinese New Year, two new titles were just released, 
by Katie Cleminson. 
by Mem Fox, illustrated by Tricia Tusa. 
by Carl R. Sams II & Jean Stoick. Carl R. Sams II Photography (November 1999); 48 pages; ISBN 9780967174808
by Lynne Rae Perkins. Greenwillow Books (September 2003); 32 pages; ISBN 9780066239569
. Underneath the humorous and relatively offbeat cover is a story that both shocks and entertains, interweaving animal rights messages into a book with a patchwork of intriguing and comical canine and human characters. 
by Heidi R. Weimer, mostly because of the flashy lights and music. The book consists of rhyming, cutesy endearments and whimsical illustrations. It is super sugary sweet so watch out if you're usually not one to go overboard with the sweetie phrases. It's one of those "small batteries required" books...just warning you. The music from the book doesn't quite match up to the text so you have to either make your story shorter or close and reopen the book to finish singing along. The last phrase is the best, 
by Diane deGroat. A furry animal named Gilbert needs to write out Valentine's Day poems for his classmates but doesn't feel like being nice towards Lewis and Margaret. Earlier they made fun of him so he retaliates by writing nasty poems and making it sound like Margaret and Lewis sent them to each other. The book stimulates discussion about classroom dynamics, friendships, apologies and forgiveness. I especially like that the children solve their own problems. One of the girls in the class asks Gilbert why he did such a mean thing and mends hurt feelings. 
by Sarah Wilson. It's a kissing pay-it-forward book that shows that love does really come back around and grows. 
