These books are almost like family heirlooms! The late great Dr Seuss, one Theodore "Ted" Giesel himself is a master crafter of bouncy rhymes, outlandish characters and of course truly bad behaviour that kids absolutely cannot resist seeing in their picture books.

We started off reading these books fairly early on, hoovering up as many as we could clutch to our chests on our library visits, then later picking up three "keepers" ourselves.

The first we read and the first we bought was, of course, "The Cat in the Hat", the story of two children stuck in on a rainy day (shades of lockdown, anyone? Very surprised no one cashed in on redoing a version of this for lockdown tbh!) and a strange visitor who insinuates his way into their lives once their mother disappears to the shops.

The Cat in The Hat has some great ideas to stave off boredom. Unfortunately most of the ideas involve trashing the house or personal property, with only the family's pet fish acting as a voice of wisdom amidst the chaos. All the brilliant signatures of Seuss are here. Peerless pitch-perfect rhymes that tickle and dance off the tongue when you're reading this aloud. Outlandish characters, terrible calamities and inventive machines (the Cat's "tidy up" machine is still a marvel, we would dearly love a real one thanks very much!).

We also couldn't resist "Green Eggs and Ham" which was my fave Seuss book as a kid. This time Sam (I Am) finds himself fed up to the back teeth at the insistence of a friend that he tries the bizarre titular dish. How about in a box? With a fox? With some goats? On a boat perhaps?

The scenarios become more and more surreal and crazy as the book ramps up to a frenetic explosive chaotic finish before Sam decides it'd just be flipping easier to try the dish in question.

....and what do you know? He likes green eggs and ham after all (the lesson most parents will try and get their kids to take away from this book is that spinach, as gross as it looks, probably isn't really that bad so just give it a little lick!)

One thing about this book that always made C laugh were the strangely dead eyed expressions on the characters as their boat literally sinks out from under them after being hit by a train (it's a long story). As with "Cat" this one's a true joy to read aloud.

Then we come to our final Seuss "Keeper" which is NOT a joy to read aloud but I still relish the challenge anyway...

"Dr Seuss Makes Reading FUN!" claims the cover. No, actually Dr Seuss will make your mouth turn to mush, your tongue twist over itself, as you try to read "The Fox in Socks" out loud.

It used to be something of a challenge from C to me - to see how fast I could rattle through this book without making any mistakes. That is, of course, an impossible task particularly when you begin to talk of tweetle beetle battles in a bottle in a puddle, with a poodle and a paddle in a muddle.

Oh god, I can almost feel my anxiety rising...

Don't be put off though, this is still one of the best of Seuss many, many books and we've included a link to a few more below...

Original Review Links: 

ReaditDaddy's Second Book of the Week - Week Ending 11th October 2019: "Dr Seuss' Horse Museum" by Dr Seuss and Andrew Joyner (Penguin Books)

The Lorax by Dr Seuss (HarperCollins Children's Books)

The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss (HarperCollins Children's Books)

"...and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street" by Dr Seuss (HarperCollins Children's Books)

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut by Dr Seuss (HarperCollins Children's Books)

Booky Advent Calendar Day 12: "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (60th Anniversary Edition) by Dr Seuss (HarperCollins Children's Books)

The Fox in Socks by Dr Seuss (HarperCollins Children's Books)

ReadItDaddy's Book of the Week - Week ending 21st June 2013 - "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr Seuss (HarperCollins Children's Books)

Though my memory is hazy at times, I can remember my childhood being dominated by Dr Seuss books. I can also remember exactly how many copies of this utterly essential book I have owned. 6. The reason we ended up having to buy a new copy for Charlotte recently was mainly because those six have been borrowed, stolen or have ended up read until they literally fell apart (one copy I owned while studying art and design in Brighton was mercilessly stolen from my student digs along with a rather scratty Cat in the Hat T Shirt - at least the thief had taste!)

Charlotte loves Dr Seuss books, so rather than relying on the completely random chance that our local library has some (they are nearly always out on loan, with good reason!) we bought three. You've already seen my hopeless attempts at rhyming in our review of Green Eggs and Ham, so here's what we thought of the book that pretty much made Theodor Seuss Geisel a household name.

Two children are home alone (can you imagine two kids being left on their own with just a goldfish as a babysitter these days? The Daily Mail would have a field day, tsk tsk), bored, staring out of the window at the pouring rain. Bored with toys, bored with playing, bored bored bored.

But with a sharp rap at the door, the jauntiest and most fabulous hat in children's literary history, and the cheekiest grin enters The Cat in the Hat.

The Cat in the Hat knows what to do about boredom. He knows a million and one games you can play. Basically though he's an absolute show-off so all of the games basically involve him playing to his new captive audience, the two children and their grumpy (but quite justifiably so) goldfish.

Cats and balancing household objects usually means chaos, so despite the fish's loud protests The Cat in the Hat proceeds to trash the house, pretty much. It doesn't end there, because The Cat soon ropes in two friends for new games - Thing One and Thing Two!

If anything, they're even worse than the cat - flying kites indoors, skidding around the house and making even more mess and chaos than the Cat did.

Soon enough though, the wise goldfish spies Mum coming down the path. Cat-astrophe! Can the children possibly tidy up the humungous mess in time?

Just in case you're the one person on the planet who hasn't read the rest, I'll not spoil it for you. Knockabout fun in children's books doesn't really get any better than this, and it was obviously so hugely successful when it was originally written way back in 1954 and eventually printed and released in 1957.

Many authors are cited as the agents of radical change in the way children's books were written and perceived but right here is the very book and the very author that I'd say is responsible for and hugely influential on the way children's books are made today. It's timeless, it's fantastic fun, the rhymes flow like hot melted butter and it never ever gets boring. I was so pleased to see Charlotte's reaction to the Dr Seuss books (nothing but abject joy), and hope that she'll always love them as much as I do.

Charlotte's best bit: Thing One and Thing Two (they are SO CUTE, Daddy!)

Daddy's favourite bit: I won't spoil the end but I just cannot get enough of Seuss' crazy machinery in his stories. The one at the end of this book? I want one!