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Loading...What Do Kids Think of The Lorax?
- The Nature Conservancy
- March 15, 2012
- 10:30 am
- 12 comments
by Sarene Marshall, The Nature Conservancy
We are a family of quite dedicated Dr. Seuss fans – when my husband and I got married and combined our book collections, we discovered we owned two copies of The Cat in the Hat. Our two girls (now 6 and 7 ½) have been immersed in Seuss’ writings since before birth. The first book we ever read them was Oh, Baby, the Places You’ll Go – a veritable tour through dozens of Dr. Seuss’ books, featuring Horton, Cindy-Lou Who and a range of other characters from some of his most beloved books. Oh, Baby is subtitled “A Book to be Read in Utero” and contains an interesting forward by Dr. Seuss’ widow about the late author’s interest in babies’ ability to hear sound while in the womb.
Whether it’s proof that the in-utero reading worked or not, I don’t know, but we moved on from there to many, many bedtimes accompanied by The Cat in the Hat; One Fish, Two Fish; Green Eggs and Ham; and many other Seuss and Seuss-inspired beginner books.
Although we have always owned Seuss’ more advanced stories, we had only read a few of them before other characters and genres (including lots of Fancy Nancy!) took over our nighttime reading rituals and the Seuss books got left on the shelf more often than not. And how ironic that, given I spend my days at The Nature Conservancy working to protect forests, our girls had never read Seuss’ quintessential environmental tale, The Lorax!
So, it was with great excitement that we took advantage of the release of The Lorax movie – a rare opportunity to be able to connect my profession with a time-tested, kid-friendly story. And, even better than that, we were given the chance to see the movie before it was out in theaters – courtesy of The Nature Conservancy’s partnership with Universal Pictures, which aims to engage movie-goers in a campaign to bring Earth’s current equivalent of a Truffula forest back to life. In preparation for our field trip to the theater, we dusted off our copy of The Lorax story, and our girls excitedly produced colorful interpretations of Lorax characters and scenes.
Read more: Children, Family, Green, Nature, climate change, forests, global warming, lorax, Nature Conservancy, reading, Sarene Marshall, seuss
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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Awesome video, incredibly clever and so very true, Mae West quote was best.
Lo thinks that we're all rich!
Thank you for sharing this!
Sometimes, it's amazing how strong the mother-instinct really is.
12 comments
+ add your ownI haven't seen the film, but I've heard pretty mixed reviews. If it promotes conversation about environmental issues with the next generation then it mustn't have totally missed the mark though. I hope it's starting similar conversations in less environmentally minded families as well!
Though my 2 youngers children don't speak english, I fondly remember one evening when we were camping, and by the fireside, a neighbour and friend who had a child pretty much the sem age as mine, came to read a bed time story, it was "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish". We had read, translating, and miming the story, looking at the pictures by the light of flashlights... Thank you, Susan, for friendship and for raising my awareness of English litt. Thank you Dr Seuss'.
Which got me thinking... My girls haven't heard of the Lorax yet, and I don't plan on taking them to see that movie. So, maybe I should get a copy of Dr Seuss' Lorax and give it to the older one, who started learning english in school. We could have fun once more, reading, miming and translating for the youngest, and looking at the beautiful pictures together.
thanks
Sorry that I vote no because I do not have kids. But if I have kids definitely its a "yes."
Whatever formal social or environmental education for children, its good. But the problem with the Lorax issue is that its becoming commercialized. I still think that perhaps the good will still outweighs the bad in this sense because when its "commercialized" it quietly seeps into those who actually do not think much about environmental issues. This somehow will generate some form of indirect education and thus create some form of awareness. Bottomline - there will less morons in society.
We boys and I love Dr Seuss. He is one of my favorite authors and we loved The Lorax!! :)
But hasn't there been controversy about The Lorax attaching itself to some 70 product placements, among them a Mazda SUV and the International House of Pancakes, which is hardly healthy food?
Here's the story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/03/is-the-lorax-pushing-green-doctrine-or-suvs-and-pancakes.html
And here is a link to Stephen Colbert's making the same point on the movie of The Lorax. It's hilarious but it shows a totally different perspective than the article above:
http://deadspin.com/5888838/stephen-colbert-uses-verse-to-express-his-disappointment-with-the-loraxs-many-product-tie+ins?tag=productplacement
I love that little tree-hugger.
Thank you for this article. It is also good that you take the metro - public transport is an ecofriendly way to go.
I don't have kids, but I always used to read them when I was younger ^^
Purely inspirational, allows our children's imagination to expound to great heights. . . . Wildly fun with over the top rainbows of colors for the vividly drawn. I thought it was absolutely amazing, my 4yr old little boy says; "mommy your such a genius". Let me express how perfectly adorable he is. Pure genius!!!!
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