One Fish Two Fish by Dr. Suess

#40days40books entry 14

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish was published in 1960 and continues to delight and confound to this day. Nothing happens. There is no plot. Which is part of what makes this classic what it is - utter absurdity in motion. It is also an extraordinary boost to the imagination. Who even thinks of this stuff? Dr. Suess, that's who.

Upside down and backwards. Whew.

I read this book one Saturday downtown sometime in 2013, and it blew my mind. Not because of the content or the rhyming (or the tongue-twisters that didn't twist my tongue off). At one point I looked up and there were 7 children, all under the age of 4 sitting quietly. Quietly! Listening. That had never happened before. I'd never had that big of a crowd for Storytime that didn't have a guest author, and I'd never seen the children sit so still during an entire book. And it is not a short book. The power of Suess, I guess.

Back in May of 2016, we hosted a group of kids from a local school at the store for a morning of Storytime and activities. I read If I Rad the Zoo to them. I ... did not read the book beforehand and there's a line in it that caught me entirely off guard. You know those moments around the dinner table when you've just said The Wrong Thing and everyone gets really quiet? The line is "I'll hunt in the mountains of Zomba-ma-Tant/ with helpers who all wear their eyes in a slant" and ... well, I think you see. It's awkward. You flinch. That happened. We all got real, real quiet. And then I took a deep breath and kept going, with one eye on the sentence ahead for the rest of the book.

Some few days later a customer came upstairs with a used copy of Geisel's WWII political art, and noted the anti-Japanese racism in his work of the time.

Great.

All our faves are problematic. That's how humans work. Also, all our faves are recorded on the internet because that is how contemporary civilization works. The internet is searchable. I searched.

"dr suess japanese"

And discovered that Horton Hears a Who was written by Dr. Suess as recognition of, and attempts at atonement for, his anti-Japanese racism and sentiment during the war. See also: Can We Forgive Dr. Suess

I mean, look, there are always other authors to read. Ezra Jack Keats, as it turns out, is even more amazing than we all thought.

And I will find others. Because you don't stop doing that work. Clearly. Dr. Suess is still helping me open my mind and find more in the world.

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