Dr. Seuss: Day 2

For Day 2, we read Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. There are three stories in this book. The first is Yertle the Turtle. Yertle the Turtle is king of the pond and is quite happy until one day when he decides that his kingdom is too small. He has his "subjects" stand on top of each other so he can see further. He then also becomes the ruler of a cow, mule, house, blueberry bush and a cat. That quickly isn't enough for him so he commands more turtles to stack up so he can now also rule the trees, birds, bees, butterflies and air. He sees the moon and wants to reach that so he can rule it when his throne becomes hungry and tired and the turtle at the bottom (Mack) lets out a burp which causes the throne to fall. Yertle stays king of the mud and the turtles are free to live life as they choose. 

The next story is Gertrude McFuzz. She is a girl-bird that has a small plain tail. A fancy bird, Lolla-Lee-Lou, flies by with two tails. Gertrude becomes jealous and wants to have the same tail so she goes to her uncle who's a doctor and asks him to give her something to help her grow another tail. He tries to warn her that the tail she has is perfect for her but she throws a tantrum until he gives in to her and tells her where the berries are. She finds them and eats one but then that tail just isn't enough so she eats all the berries she can find and grows many, many tails. She's excited to go and show off but then she can't move. She yells and her uncle comes with help and the birds are able to bring her home where all the tails are removed. I love the ending: 

And, finally, when all of the pulling was done, 
Gertrude, behind her, again had just one...
That one little feather she had as a starter.
But now that's enough, because now she is smarter.

The last story is The Big Brag. This starts out with a rabbit who is bragging about how great he is and a bear hears him and starts arguing that he is better. The rabbit says he has the superior sense of hearing and the bear counters that he has the superior sense of smell. A worm crawls out of the ground and says he's tired of listening to their arguing and he has the superior sense of sight. When asked what he saw, he said he looked all around the world and came back to the hill where he saw two fools arguing over who's better than who, and then he goes back into his hole. 

One thing I love about reading with my kids is how easy it is to discuss topics and see what they get out of the book. We have some great discussions when we finish reading. I love the morals to these stories: Stepping on others to get to the top will result in a big fall, envy will make you miserable so learn to be happy with what you have and how you look and one-upmanship proves nothing and makes both parties look bad. 

My Rating: 4 stars