58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
and you think YOU have it bad...!!, May 24, 2001
This review is from: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (Classic Seuss) (Hardcover)
Theodore Seuss Guisel is, of course, one of the best known children's authors today. Though he left us in 1994, his legacy lives on and his books are still produced, bought and loved as much now as anytime in the past. When we think of him, we immediately think of "The Cat in the Hat" or "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", but we can easily forget some of his wonderful, lesser-known works. "When I was quite young and quite small for my size I met an old man in the Desert of Drize..." So begins "Did I Ever Tell You..." where the narrator finds an old man sitting atop a prickly cactus in the middle of the desert. The man tells the boy narrator that whenever HE feels like his life isn't going well, he reminds himself how lucky he really IS. He could be, for example, a construction worker on the impossibly rickety Bunglebung Bridge, where workers are toiling over the water to finish the impossibly crooked structure. Yes, things could be far worse!! You could be a Poogle-Horn Player who has to honk away on your complex, tuba-like Poogle-Horn while descending a flight of stairs... on a two story unicycle, no less!! The absurdness of people less fortunate splash across each page, Seuss-like, as Mr. Bix wakes up at 6 in the morning to find that his Borfin has schlumpped over, or Mr. Potter who has to dot i's and cross t's on endless, miles-long spools of paper! Yes, things could be far worse than they are, Ducky, so count yourself lucky! Published in 1973, "Have I Ever Told You..." is a wonderfully funny book with some subtle messages. Written during a period of time when parents were still forever admonishing their children, "you're so lucky to be able to eat those Brussels sprouts!! Why, there's children starving in Africa..." the book can be seen as a lesson in morality and thankfulness OR as satire of those very parents who encourage children to think of those less fortunate than them when they crank about life's inequities. Satire or morality play, "Have I Ever Told You..." is classical Seuss at his best. The illustrations are properly absurd and colorful, splashing across the page in Seuss's perennial style. There's humans assembling bridges as well as odd creatures getting stuck in 4-way traffic jams. The illustrations are uncluttered and the text is easy to read, making it an excellent choice for beginning to intermediate readers. A wonderfully fun book, and highly recommended!!
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyone Should own This!, March 28, 2000
This review is from: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (Classic Seuss) (Hardcover)
Adults as well as children appreciate this book. The message that we should all consider how lucky we are is delivered in classical Seuss style with rhymes and nonsensical words - but is still a powerful message that most of us need to hear now and then. I consider this one of his best works because it not only delivers a good message, reading it is delightful entertainment. Read it aloud to both young and old.
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43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Look on the Bright Side!, October 5, 2000
This review is from: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (Classic Seuss) (Hardcover)
Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.
To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" was one of her picks.
If my daughter picked the book, you may be wondering why I rated this book at four stars. That is an average rating of five stars for adults and three stars for children. Although my daughter liked the book, I think that most children won't get it. On the other hand, they will think it is funny, and that's a fair benefit from any book. But the moral will be missed.
This book is the most humorous variant on the admonition that every parent uses with children: Don't you know there are people starving in Blank! Because someone is worse off than you is supposed to make you feel better. It never worked for me when my parents tried that. After you have lived a while though, you begin to count your blessings. Having seen the downside as portrayed by Dr. Seuss will make you feel even more relieved by poking fun at your self concerns.
In this book, you will meet people with all kinds of thorny problems, starting with an old man sitting on top of cactus in the Desert of Drize. Ouch!
No job could be as bad as putting the Bunglebung Bridge together. No commute could be as awful as the one on Zayt Highway Eight! If you live in Ga-Zair, your bedroom could be at the top of one tall house and your bathroom at the top of another. Anyone who has ever taken something apart and had difficulty putting it back together again will sympathize with poor Berbie Hart and his Throm-dim-bu-lator, which he has taken apart. Gardening comes in here, too, for poor Ali Sard makes so little money mowing his uncle's grass that he has to moonlight by painting flagpoles.
Just to tell you how effective these images are, I found myself practically having frustration daydreams by just looking at them again. Dr. Seuss knew his audience of older children well.
If your child loves the book, don't hold it back. But if you love it more, just borrow it from time to time when you need a morale boost!
After you have finished reading and enjoying this book, ask yourself how you could take your now-perceived good luck and turn it into even greater luck. If you are like me, you will often have resources and capabilities that you take for granted. How else could you be using these blessings to your advantage as well as the advantage of your children, those you love, and others?
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