The Tooth Book By Dr. Seuss – Teaching Kids To Care For Their Pearly Whites
As adults or grown ups, we can easily forget that, as kids, we spend so much of our time either getting new teeth or losing the ones we had during our infancy. This is especially true during ages 2 through 10. This is rarely a pleasant experience. And even if our parents our trying to comfort us with stories like having a generous tooth fairy visiting us and granting our wishes, it feels like the discomfort and pain will never end. Under his pen name Theo Lesieg (which is an anagram of Geisel), Dr. Seuss wrote The Tooth Book, which is arguably the world’s best book for teaching kids everything they need to know about teeth, how to take care of it, and how to read. I don’t know about you BUT I haven’t seen any early reader’s book that could rival this masterful creation by Dr. Seuss.
What I love about The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss is that it is arranged into questions that a reporter would ask – very convenient and very easy to go through. Who has teeth? A LOT! You could include your red headed uncles, zebras, camels along with their riders, policemen, a girl who goes by the name Ruthie in the list.
Where can you find teeth? You can find them in almost every direction. You can find them thriving on mountain tops, up in the air, underground, east, west, north, and south, and even inside the lion’s mouth. Why do these teeth exist? According to Dr. Seuss in his book, they come very handy for chewing. However, they are just as important when you are smiling, talking, and especially if you are some kind of an acrobat who needs to hold his balance by his teeth. Who doesn’t have teeth? Unfortunately, creatures like snails and jelly fishes are left out.
What about people’s teeth? What’s there to know about? For us, we will grow 2 sets, with the second set having 32. Keep in mind, though, that you won’t get any more than that and taking good care of them is a MUST if you want to have a great looking smile. Forget about chewing trees like a beaver would, using your teeth as a bottle opener, or indulging in sweet junk foods. These are just some of the questions and answers you would find in The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss.
Humorous but very apt and useful advice like – “They are handy when you smile. So keep your teeth around a while”, “And never bite your dentist…your teeth’s best friend. Bite someone else instead” will get your kids laughing and learning how to take care of their teeth and read at the same time with the simple language and lively illustrations found in The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss. Keep in mind, though, that you would get a lot of questions from your kids as to why these toothy things occur and where they came from. My advice? Talk to your dentist or look up some facts about our pearly whites.
The illustrations found in The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss are not by the famed author, especially in the new editions that are circulating in book stores both offline and online. However, just like the older editions, they are of great quality. You would find the teeth in large, center position, and are drawn excellently. This will make your kids realize that having a complete set of pearly white teeth is something positive – it should be taken care of and enjoyed by everyone.
As an early reader’s book, The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss is excellent for repetition and rhyming. As we all know, repetition and rhyming are necessary for teaching your kids how to read at an early age. You would find the words tooth and teeth on every single page of the book. This will surely help your kids identify these words easily. You can even point the words in the story when you are about to read them, prompting your child to read them to you aloud. Later on, you can add other words like smile, a, the, etc. that are repeated throughout the book.
Become a better parent and help your child become a better reader with The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss and other highly acclaimed early reader’s books written by the author…and at a price that won’t bore a hole in your pocket!