McElligot’s Pool

By Dr. Seuss

Ages 4 to 8

McElligot’s Pool is a Seuss classic from the distant era before even The Cat In The Hat. In this colorful picture book, a boy named Marco goes fishing in a small pond called McElligot’s Pool. As he sits waiting for a bite, a farmer calls him a fool and says “You’ll never catch fish in McElligot’s Pool!” Marco, however, refuses to be discouraged and argues, “what if the pool is deeper than anyone thinks? What if it connects to an underground stream that flows under the town to the sea? Might not all sorts of fish then swim up the stream and be caught here? “I might catch an eel… (Well, I might. It depends.) A long twisting eel with a lot of strange bends, And, oddly enough, with a head at both ends!”

It’s a single poetic variation on the theme of adult skepticism that’s no match for childhood faith and daydreaming. The moral of the story is straightforward: “If I wait long enough, if I’m patient and cool,/ Who knows what I’ll catch in McElligot’s pool?”

Thidwick The Big-Hearted Moose

By Dr. Seuss

Ages 4 to 8

When a moose gives a Bingle Bug a ride on his horns, he unwillingly becomes host to a large number of freeloading pests.

This classic Seuss title stars a happy-looking quadruped from the shores of Lake Winna-Bango who has the most amazing antlers and the kindest disposition. Alas! Everyone, but everyone, takes advantage of his generosity, and before long he has three-quarters of the animal kingdom nesting in the convenient perches atop his head. (”They asked in a fox, who jumped in from the trees, / They asked in some mice and they asked in some fleas.”) You might think someone would take pity, but nobody seems to like an oddball, and all Thidwick gets for his trouble is complaints and contempt. Unable to cross the lake when winter threatens, he looks all set to starve–and then things get even worse. He is saved from certain death just in time, swims the lake, and joins the herd again. One reason this Seuss is so good: it has a moral, but the moral isn’t pressed too far and the exuberant linguistic fun isn’t subservient to it.