30 novels, day 7: Green Eggs and Ham
I am Tom.
Tom I am.
I do so love Green Eggs and Ham.
(Okay, technically I
suppose one can’t call this a novel, but when I was a child and just learning
to read this book seemed gigantic to me. It was an epic adventure. It had
mystery, conflict, animals, travel, a plucky, persistent hero, and a startling
transformation at the end. And everything rhymed. Magically, wonderfully, ridiculously,
everything in the world rhymed. It started with this unnamed … whatever he is …
sitting reading in a chair in front a big blue wall. Is he inside? Outside?
Hard to tell. Then along comes Sam-I-am, acrobatically standing on the backs of strange creatures, with his signs and his one-track mind about green
eggs and ham, and he will not let it go. Sam-I-am is going to pursue this guy to
the ends of the earth if that’s what it takes to get him to try green eggs and
ham. And just look at how far Sam-I-am and Whatshisname end up going. Look at
the stuff that happened to them on the way. The wild ride in the car. The
train. The spooky tunnel. The boat. The almighty plunge and crash into the
ocean that no one seems to mind, not the people on the train, or the boat, or
the animals, everyone is smiling as train and boat and animals hurtle into the
water. And Sam-I-am and Whatshisname don’t even notice, they’re still so intent
on their mighty contest of wills and words, but at last Whatshisname (did he
ever have a name? Did Dr Seuss know what his name was?) gives in and tries the
green eggs and ham, which by this time I always thought must be cold and wet
and briny from falling into the sea, and yet the guy eats the stuff -- a green
egg??? Yuck! -- and likes it. And everyone is happy. And then I had to read it
again, to let the spell of the words fall over me one more time. And again and again. And from here
I could go on to read bigger books, harder books, books with more than fifty different words, books
without rhymes, without pictures, drawn on by the mystery of language and
story.)
The fifty words: 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.
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