Wisdom of Dr. Seuss

The kind of nonsense that children love and adults never outgrow

“What’s wrong with kids having fun reading without being preached at”

Dr. Seuss : Theodor Geisel

Effective tales that foster moral imagination

• empathy

• “childness”: vulnerability, immediacy, openness & neediness

• moralism

The child’s openness to constructing a world is not defiant or even subversive, as some

parents might suggest, but rather reflective of the child’s natural narrative perspective

We never outgrow childness

Cannot avoid having troubles nor is there even a simple solution to our troubles

We have freedom to think what we want and go where we want

Oh, the Thinks You Can Think Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

The immediacy of childness that is a prelude to wonder

Dependency must be included in any definition of what it means to be human even in adulthood

Faithfulness changes things

Sweet morality tales from silly rhymes and nonsensical stories

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Yertle the Turtle

Provoke the moral imagination of children “who have ears to hear”