One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (Dr Seuss Blue Back Books) [Paperback]

Dr Seuss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003 | Age Level: 3 and up | Series: Dr Seuss Blue Back Books

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere. In this hilarious exploration of simple concepts such as colours, numbers and opposites, Dr. Seuss presents a crazy world of boxing Goxes and winking Yinks that drink pink ink! With his unique combination of hilarious stories, zany pictures and riotous rhymes, Dr. Seuss has been delighting young children and helping them learn to read for over fifty years. Creator of the wonderfully anarchic Cat in the Hat, and ranked among the UK's top ten favourite children's authors, Seuss is firmly established as a global best-seller, with nearly half a billion books sold worldwide. As the first step in a major rebrand programme, HarperCollins is relaunching 17 of Dr. Seuss's best-selling books, including such perennial favourites as The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and Fox in Socks. In response to consumer demand, the bright new cover designs incorporate much needed guidance on reading levels, with the standard paperbacks divided into three reading strands -- Blue Back Books for parents to share with young children, Green Back Books for budding readers to tackle on their own, and Yellow Back Books for older, more fluent readers to enjoy. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish belongs to the Blue Back Book range.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Did you ever fly a kite in bed? Did you ever walk with ten cats on your head?" Such are the profound, philosophical queries posed in this well-loved classic by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel. While many rhymes in this couplet collection resemble sphinx-worthy riddles, Seuss's intention is clear: teach children to read in a way that is both entertaining and educational. It matters little that each wonderful vignette has nothing to do with the one that follows. (We move seamlessly from a one-humped Wump and Mister Gump to yellow pets called the Zeds with one hair upon their heads.) Children today will be as entranced by these ridiculous rhymes as they have been since the book's original publication in 1960--so amused and enchanted, in fact, they may not even notice they are learning to read! (Ages 4 to 8) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Dr. Seuss ignites a child's imagination with his mischievous characters and zany verses. The Express

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 3 and up
  
• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Collins (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007158564
• ISBN-13: 978-0007158560
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (166 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,319,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Literature > Poetry > Dr. Seuss
  • #38 in Books > Children's Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Dr. Seuss
  • #40 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Popular Characters > Book Characters > Dr. Seuss

More About the Author

"A person's a person, no matter how small," Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, would say. "Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted."

Brilliant, playful, and always respectful of children, Dr. Seuss charmed his way into the consciousness of four generations of youngsters and parents. In the process, he helped millions of kids learn to read.

Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1904. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1925, he went to Oxford University, intending to acquire a doctorate in literature. At Oxford, Geisel met Helen Palmer, whom he wed in 1927. Upon his return to America later that year, Geisel published cartoons and humorous articles for Judge, the leading humor magazine in America at that time. His cartoons also appeared in major magazines such as Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty. Geisel gained national exposure when he won an advertising contract for an insecticide called Flit. He coined the phrase, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" which became a popular expression.

Geisel published his first children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, in 1937, after 27 publishers rejected it.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, an Academy Award, three Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards, and three Caldecott Honors, Geisel wrote and illustrated 44 books. While Theodor Geisel died on September 24, 1991, Dr. Seuss lives on, inspiring generations of children of all ages to explore the joys of reading.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book that doesn't drive parents nuts, June 22, 2000

By 

Jim Carson "http://www.jimcarson.com" (Bellevue, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (I Can Read It All by Myself) (Hardcover)

The thing I like most about this book is it survives the perpetual-reading test, that is, neither my daughter nor I am tired of reading it after two years.

"One Fish..." is really composed of several "short" sections that can be read in any order, so for a toddler, it's perfectly fine to skip around. In fact, this is conducive to a toddler's randomness - one day it's "Hop hop hop, I am a Yop"; another day it's "From there to here."

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest book ever written by anybody ever., September 24, 2000

By 

Evan Streb - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (I Can Read It All by Myself) (Hardcover)

Allright ya little PUNKS. You go read your Tom Clancys and your sappy Danielle Steel romance novels and your "Bridges of Madison County"s and we can even go back time to your Mark Twains and your "Catcher In The Rye"s, you go read ALL of that. Then read THIS book, and YOU tell me which one is better. Because NONE of that can match the emotional intensity of reading to your kids at bedtime: "Once there was a little Nook. On his hat he had a hook. On his hook he had a book. On his book was "How to Cook". But a Nook can't read and a Nook can't cook, so what good to a Nook is a hook cook book?" AWESOME!

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Daughter's Favorite Book by Dr. Seuss, August 27, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (I Can Read It All by Myself) (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. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish was her pick as the best of the books by Dr. Seuss.

One of the appeals of this book is that it is relatively easy to learn to read, yet has much more variety than most other early readers. So your child will feel like she or he has accomplished a lot with reading this book, which is correct.

The title gives the key to why this book works well as an early reader. One word is changed at a time, with a clear illustration next to it. Most children will read the illustrations like a rebus and later associate the words with the sounds of the name for the pictures. At some point, they begin reading from the words. Very nice!

Here's another sequence: "black fish blue fish old fish new fish."

Then, when he moves on, he uses simple rhymes: "This one has a little star. This one has a little car."

Next, he progresses to substituting "some" for "fish" and adding a single verb to make a sentence as in "Some are read . . . . Some are old."

So almost any child can soon begin to read along with few errors in the first 2 or 3 pages. Whenever the child can go no more, you can just keep going. With repetition, more of the book becomes memorized and the process continues.

There is another reward for you and your child: The book also previews many of the wonderful characters and rhyming schemes that appear in other Dr. Seuss books. As a result, it will be easier to get started reading those books. You will feel like you are seeing an old friend again.

You can also use each rhyme to take off on your own speculations. Our daughter used to love to come up with alternative rhymes that fit the pictures.

Books like this one make it great fun to be either a parent or a child. In some cases, this book will be there for you in both roles over 20 to 40 years!

Overcome your mistaken beliefs about how children can start to learn to read by seeing your child start naturally by associating the words with the pictures as you read this wonderful book to him or her!