Dr. Seuss Book Club

Dr Seuss Books – Green Eggs And Ham

You can have a look around – surf the net, check out the nearest bookstore, etc. and you will surely realize that Dr. Seuss books are the most famous kids’ reading books that you and you child could every lay your hands on. Green Eggs And Ham is no exception. Matter of fact, this book that was published back in 1960 was one of the best selling literary books for kids and was declared by Publisher’s Weekly (back in 2001) as the fourth best selling English Language kids’ book and novel of all time.

Why? What does this children’s novel have that skyrocketed it to the top? Let’s take a closer at it:

Dr. Seuss Books – Green Eggs And Ham’s Plot
This very interesting story is told with the aid of lively and colorful images coupled with Dr. Seuss’ signature rhyming dialogue. Unlike the usual kids’ books that come with a descriptive narrative and analysis, Green Eggs And Ham doesn’t have any of those. In the story, you would find 2 main characters – the first one is unnamed and the second one goes by the name Sam-I-Am (or just simply Sam).

As you read through the pages of Green Eggs And Ham, you would find Sam trying to convince the first unnamed character to give green eggs and ham a shot, BUT with very little success. The first character refuses to try green eggs and ham, telling Sam over and over again that he wouldn’t like it. Sam even goes through different locations like house, car, tree, train, box, etc. and different dining partners like fox, goat, etc. in his effort to convince the first character to taste this oddly colored dish. The story concluded with the first character standing in shallow water when a boat sank and was being surrounded with different faces, people, and animals. At this point, he finally gave in, saying he will try out green eggs and ham on one condition – that Sam should leave him alone.

And this is where a surprise came in. After trying green eggs and ham, the unnamed character concluded that he does like it! Matter of fact, he even said he would eat them in all the places and with all the dining partners that Sam suggested in the book. In conclusion, the unnamed character thanked Sam for his unrivalled persistence.

Dr. Seuss Books – Green Eggs And Ham Fun Facts
This is one of Seuss’ beginner books that were written with a very simple vocabulary for starting readers to cope up with and enjoy. Matter of fact, the vocabulary of this kids’ novel is composed of only 50 words! 49 of the words used are monosyllabic (with the word “anywhere” being the exception). This gave the book an exceptionally low Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of one to three – making the book very suitable for beginning readers. Here’s another fun fact – after the completion of The Cat In The Hat (another Dr. Seuss classic that used only 225 books), the publisher of Dr. Seuss, Bennett Cerf, wagered $50 – saying that he couldn’t complete a book by using only 50 beginner words.

Needless to say, Dr. Seuss won the wager and bagged the 50 dollars. Just in case you are wondering, here are the 50 words used in the book Green Eggs And Ham arranged alphabetically – a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

Dr. Seuss Books – Green Eggs And Ham Review
In my opinion, this masterfully created kids’ book by Dr. Seuss is the perfect balance between a message book and a book for early readers. On the message side of the book, we would see Dr. Seuss teaching the importance of persistence as shown by Sam. Along with that, the skeptical unnamed character also learned the importance of NOT clinging on old ideas since the change a lot. On the early-reader-book side of things, Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs And Ham shows us what a good book should have – an engaging plot, simple words, repetitions and rhymes, etc. that allows the developing reader to follow through very quickly and easily…even without help!