DR. SEUSS' SLEEP BOOK.
(Theodor S. Geisel '25). New York: RandomHouse, 1962. 55 pp. $2.95.
Memo-notes taken for review of above book: Yawn usually catching, a fact not sufficiently noted outside of technical books. Good start. N.B. Everyone trying to cover yawn with hand, subtle lesson in manners. Nice idea brushing teeth at the Falls, good description "great gargling gushes." Like line "if you happen to be up that way with your teeth." What happens if not with teeth? (Like lots of lines.) Dandy picture of Castle of Krupp closing up for the night, nice matching verse too. Wish stilt walkers were stilt walking. Hinkle Horn Honkers nice set of words. Collapsible Frink, when uncollapsed, is one of Seuss' Better Animals. Too bad it is going to sleep, has great possibilities. Counting machine can give points to IBM.
Must remember and use "babbled and gabbled." Hoop-Soup-Snoop Group combination is not for rapid reading aloud, could get into trouble. Lovely simplicity of Curious Crandals who go to sleep walking balancing candles on heads so they will see where they are should they wake up. Natch. Imagination rampant everywhere. See Chippendale Mupp who bites his tail as an 8-hour alarm clock. Incredible Unreason a clock "with ticks in its tocker, and tocks in its ticker, it saves lots of time and the sleepers sleep quicker." But does reason matter? Homely Touch. Sheets too short and beds too hard at the Zwiebach Motel.
Non-Sleeping Thought - a band which has such a potent joint snore that forty elephants quiver at the sound. Nice Touch Signs for waking floating animals (the Offts). Peter Piper and his pickles outdone by moose, goose, and their goose juice and moose juice, a glorious set of tongue twisters. Caverns measureless to man are now floating the Bumble-Tub Club. Creatures asleep on barber shop poles look uncomfortably precarious, but who cares? Final group drawings of slumbering things very soporific.
Note nice adaptation of names of the creatures to fit rhymes. Not as easy as jt looks, but very important. Who else would think of Foona-Lagoona Baboona, or Zizzer-Zoofing? Can't believe it but whole book funnier and better than ever. Age does not wither, nor custom stale (is this polite?) REMEMBER to check quotations.
