My Love/Hate Relationship with Dr. Suess’s ABC

I HATE THIS BOOK! Yet, I LOVE THIS BOOK!
Never have I ever felt so strongly on both ends of the spectrum for any book as I do for Dr. Suess’s ABC.

I HATE IT!…..
I had never been fond of Dr. Suess books as a child and do not like them any better as an adult. His books just did not appeal to me. That does not mean, however, that I don’t recognize this man’s brilliance as an educator through children’s books.

Okay, so I did not care for his books. But how could I possibly grow to HATE this book? After all, nobody hates Dr. Suess books, do they? Well, I will tell you how. My husband proudly walked into the house one day with Dr. Suess’s ABC that he paid a whopping $.10 for at a thrift store. He thought he had done something wonderful and in a way, he did. He had no idea I was not a Dr. Suess fan! I should also mention that my son was about one year old at the time and already loved books as we had been reading to him since birth. Another important key to my forthcoming insanity was that my husband’s job took him away from home days at a time so “yes”, I was the primary reader to my son.

Dad read the book that night and our son was immediately hooked on it. He had to read it a second time and a third before our son calmly agreed to lights out. Dad was off to work the following day. I will never forget that day when I had the idea in my head that Dr. Suess’s ABC would be reserved as special for son and Dad together time. HA! I sure had a rude awakening! Naptime came. I find Dr. Suess’s ABC dropped in my lap and big, brown eyes looking up at me. We read it two times. Bedtime came. Oh no-o-o-o! Not again! Yes, Yes, Yes…. THREE times again! This was the beginning of a daily ritual that would not end for a long time. Six months later, we only had to read it once at naptime and once at bedtime but by that time, who was counting? At that point, I had the book in my head 24 hours a day from reading it so much anyhow! Let me see… by my calculations, I read that book over 500 times! (Whew! No wonder I was afraid to figure that out before writing this review!)

Now for all you Dr. Suess lovers out there, look me straight in the eye and tell me that you would not HATE Dr. Suess ABC after reading it that many times! My husband probably had the opportunity to read it about 200 times. He likes Dr. Suess but guess what he did! He was so sick of reading this same book every time he was home from work for a few days, that he hid it one night just before leaving for work – out of sight, out of mind? Not a chance! You cannot begin to imagine the situation I had on my hands with my son until I thankfully found the book so he could get his daily dose for naptime.

I LOVE IT!…..
So how could I possibly LOVE Dr. Suess ABC? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that I love what and how it teaches children. I love what Dr. Suess did for my son with this book. He taught him the alphabet, that words are comprised of letters, and how to have fun playing with words to understand that the sounds of letters make up those words. He also learned both upper and lower case letters in parallel. I learned that the convention of learning all upper case first makes it more difficult for children to then learn the lower case letters later. I think this also encourages early reading, as all letters in books are simultaneously recognizable to the child. After all, books are written in both cases, not all upper case! When they pick up another book to look at, they see something familiar rather than something foreign beyond their comprehension.

Dr. Suess is well known for his nonsensical writing style and characters. I believe it is this nonsense that captures a child and does not let go until all their senses have been saturated by all its underlying components. Dr. Suess’s ABC is no exception to his use of this style.

What are the components that turn all of this nonsense into a highly educational piece of reading?

Repetition – of letters, sounds, words, and rhythm
Rhythm - Upbeat and leads the child into turning the page to get more
Action – Not only can you feel the characters come to life, but action jumps from the verse on almost every page.
Imagination – Crazy characters and situations encourage children to use their imagination to have fun and love learning.
Creativity – creative play on words encourages children to experiment with new sounds and words
Voice – the silly words and pictures definitely project a unique and ever changing voice throughout the book. It is part of what seems to stick with you and your child hours after you have finished reading.

Dr. Suess’s ABC did not only teach my son the ABC’s before he turned two. The fact that my son was so “stuck” on it also taught Mom how to use it creatively to expand its teaching potential. How else would I be able to read this darn book just “one more time” and with a smile so as to not discourage my son from the love of learning! I learned to get very theatrical in reading, use many different voices, and how to elaborate on various given concepts. I also began incorporating phonics with each letter to give us some variety with the book. By the time my son had learned to identify each letter, he was still too young to pronounce the more difficult letters. I quickly learned that he could more often easily identify them by their sound than their name, reducing the frustration level immensely for a budding verbal chatterbox while providing the tools he would need later for reading.

Dr. Suess’s ABC is not just about learning ABC’s. It builds the foundation for early reading, sets the precedence that learning can be fun, and turns success into self-confidence.

While I forego the temptation to rate this book on my personal taste,
it is with all the reasons I love this book that it obviously deserves five stars.

With that, I will leave you with a closing quote from the book. By the time the obsession wore off, I was beginning to feel like I had turned into one of these. <G>

Z (exploding from the page)
B I G Z
Little z

What begins with Z?
I do.
I am a
Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz
as you can
plainly see.