Ever since I can remember I have loved playing with words. I was constantly speaking in rhymes and verse. Often I didn’t even realize that I was doing it. You would think that I loved poetry and written verse but as I stated in my last post, I really didn’t like poetry at all as a kid. Although I often joked that I was a lyrical poet, I just loved rhyming words. Friends in school would call me the rhymer or the rapper. I certainly enjoyed rap and still do but my musical interest included so much more. I always joked that I was a word wizard. I was never sure why I had this passion for wordplay until I started teaching and having children of my own.

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From “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham” to “Fox in Socks” and Mulberry Street I was and still am Dr. Seuss’s biggest fan. It’s funny how I didn’t see it from the first time I thunk it because when I was a kid I could not get enough of it. I had so many Seuss books and loved reading them all, no matter how thick and no matter how tall. I just couldn’t stop, I thought they were great. I’m sure many times that I made my mom wait. She’d yell to me “dinner!” and tell me to hurry, the longer I took the more I made her worry. I’d come to the table my nose still in a book until I looked and I saw her quite unhappy look.

Needless to say, I was always a huge fan of Dr. Seuss books. When we had our first child, the first book I bought him was “The Cat in the Hat”. I would read it to him even when he was just a few weeks old. I’d like to say he was highly entertained by it all but more often than not he slept in my arms as I read away. I started buying more Dr. Seuss books, wishing with each purchase that I still had my childhood collection. I was able to get a few books that my mother had saved but to think of all the money that I could have saved.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go was a favourite for all. I’d read it at school to the big and the small. At the start of the year with every new class I had. I’d read them that book and I know they were glad. It inspired them to know that possibilities were endless. I knew that I’d simply always continue this. Reading this book about kids growing up and letting them know that their best is enough. Telling my kids that no matter how far, as parents we love them wherever they are. Ambition and effort can take them to the top of the mountain. It just a matter of time and the days we are counting.

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My kids loved Hop on Pop and Counting those fish. While driving in cars we’d recite them with bliss. So many memories of reading with my kids and Dr. Seuss was there for all of it so I really should thank him. To think that I thought it was all happening on Mulberry Street, when in fact Mulberry street had become my street and we were all part of the grand parade. Oh, green eggs and ham and that poor sam I am. I should count how many times I’ve read you but I don’t think I can. Horton my friend, they might love you most of all, because you taught them a person's a person, no matter how small. The stories we laughed through and stumble through each word, The Butter Battle Book was just truly absurd.

The Grinch made us giggle and the Lorax was right. It seemed we read Seuss every day and each night. Yertle the Turtle amused us and we can’t forget Mr. Brown who would always be mooooing all over town. I think we mooed too and I’m sure I heard you. What else could you expect when a book tells you what to do. Oh, the Thinks we did think while out playing those games. We learned ABC’s, made messes and even rhymes with or names.

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I started to build up a quite a collection of Seuss books and even started to find books that I have never read before. One of my favourite Seuss stories and one that I share with both students and my children is a book that he didn’t quite write. It was a book that he has started and had partially written. He had also done several sketches for the book. Unfortunately, Seuss passed away before he was able to complete the book. He was still creating magic right up until his death. The scripts were found by his wife and the book was completed by a good friend Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Lane Smith.

I fell in love with “Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!” the moment I read it.

The story surrounds a school that is well liked by its students notably because of its many eccentric teachers. However, the students must make a good grade on a standardized test (which turns out in the end to be a revising test on multiple subjects they regularly learn) lest they be sent to an adjacent school, which requires uniforms to be worn and is incredibly dull.
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Zesty rhymes, some of them Seuss's own, catalogue the eccentric staff of Diffendoofer School. Then trouble threatens: the students must take a standardized test to prove Diffendoofer's worth, lest the school be closed and everyone sent to Flobbertown ("And we shuddered at the name,/ For everyone in Flobbertown/ Does everything the same"). The valiant Miss Bonkers inspires her troops. Balancing a globe on one finger, she proudly declaims: "We've taught you that the earth is round,/ That red and white make pink,/ And something else that matters more-/ We've taught you how to think."
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I wanted to be Mr.s Bonkers. I wanted to be fun and outgoing and downright silly with my students at times but all the while teaching them the most important things while they had fun. I really think that I was already there. On any given day you can walk into my class and hear me singing out math lessons in rhyming song. To this day I still start rhyming at times when I never actually planned it.

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Thank you, Dr. Seuss, for the words that you thought. I can’t tell you enough how much pleasure I got. Your rhyming and silliness brought joy to a child and if you can believe it, its still kind of wild. My kids are hooked too, they make rhymes like their dad, and to you, I say thank you because for that I am glad. As long as I can speak I can’t see how I’d change, and why would I want to? A me without rhyme? Now that just would be strange!

P.S. Any rhyming in this post just kind of happened. Like I said, its bigger than me.