Horton’s Lessons
Posted on December 3, 2008 at 8:00 am
Be sure to look at the wonderful gallery of “Twelve Lessons Horton Taught Me” by Hillary Fields. Inspired by the upcoming release of the DVD, Fields describes the spiritual lessons of the Dr. Seuss classic from “a person’s a person, no matter how small” to the importance of responsibility and a sense of purpose.
These are excellent comments! I would encourage folks to also look for “The Parables of Dr. Seuss” by Robert Short. You might remember him from his classic, The Parables of Peanuts” and “The Gospel According to Peanuts”. I have used Seuss in all sorts of ways, from Confirmation Class to sermons. Sometimes I feel a little itchy about it. This is not because it is “kiddie lit” – a genre I find well suited to church use. It is beacuse of Mark Twain’s warning against finding moral to his story, at the beginning of Huckleberry Finn. These are simply fun books. They provide a nice and easy segue to the moral lessons – things that kids (and more adults than will admit it) find appealing. Personal favorites are East & West Going Zax (useful for church committee meetings), Sneetches (see Paul on circumcision – an awkward topic in many ways), and Thidwick the Moose (for caregivers and seminarians). The Lorax is a standard tome for youth ministry, especially on the environment. There is as much to Seuss as you are open to discover, which is why I contnue to use them for children of every generation (some folks have simply had more opportunities to practice than others at being children).
Also the animation is a MUCH better vehicle for Suess than “live” action – sorry Jim Carey or Mike Myers.
Bwahra-ghra-trala-trala-trala
This security thing is a ragsnapping wrequemangler! I am the poster of Seussian appreciation above. I – jestrfyl the frustrated!
I do not like it in that box, I think it jams more than it locks, I type the code as best I can, but it doesn’t work O Sam-I-am.