and to think that i saw it on mulberry street

There is an obvious untruthfulness in the way that Marco exaggerates and makes up the many additions to the horse and cart, but there is also an amazing truthfulness to it. The swing and merriment of the pictures and the natural truthful simplicity of the untruthfulness.” “The cleverest book I have met with for many years. When Beatrix Potter (another of my absolute favorite writers and artists) read And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street she wrote to a friend, I, for some reason or another, don’t do that.” Ninety percent of the children’s books patronize the child and say there’s a difference between you and me, so you listen to this story. “I think I communicate with kids because I don’t try to communicate with kids. Seuss was quoted in an interview in 1985 saying, It has a merriment about it and it doesn’t condescend to its readers. This book is a wonderful introduction to Seuss’ style of writing for children.

Finally his dad asks him “did nothing excite you or make your heart beat?” and Marco answers, “Nothing…but a plain horse and wagon on Mulberry Street.” Then he finally reaches home and rushes up the stairs to tell his dad about this story that no one can beat, but it is so grand that he just doesn’t know where to start. So, Marco adds a blue elephant with a Rajah on its back! It gets more and more exciting and outlandish with the mayor in attendance and a ten-foot beard, and police officers, and confetti! That’s not enough so he makes the Zebra a Reindeer, but then realizes Reindeers should pull a sleigh! But that’s so obvious, “Say, even Jane could think of that” (a jab at the Dick and Jane stories that were popular at the time.) Then he takes it even further and imagines a charioteer being pulled by the Zebra. He just can’t settle for that so he starts to imagine the cart pulled by a Zebra. Marco admits that during his walk along Mulberry Street, to and back from school, all he saw was a boring old horse and cart.

His father lectures, “Stop telling such outlandish tales, Stop turning minnows into whales.” A young boy named Marco is accused of having an overactive imagination. Seuss’ first children’s book is a celebration of a child’s ability to imagine the most grand things in very mundane surroundings. “So completely spontaneous that the American child can take it to his heart on sight… As original in conception, as spontaneous in the rendering as it is true to the imagination of a small boy.”ĭr.

And to think that i saw it on mulberry street