My Fave Dr Seuss Book: Jackie Hosking

My favourite Dr Seuss book is Horton Hears a Who, and I have to admit that I saw the film before I read the book. So while, growing up, I loved Green Eggs and Ham. As a writer of children's rhyming poetry, I am in awe of Seuss' ability to maintain, not only a longer but a brilliant story that is written in perfect rhyme and meter.

Many of Seuss' books are written in anapaestic tetrameter which means that each line consists of four rhythmic units or anapaests. An anapaest is composed of two weak beats followed by one strong beat.

If you chop up the first two lines of Horton Hears a Who you can see quite clearly what an anapaest is.

On	the	fif	teenth	of	May	in	the	Jun	gle	of	Nool
In	the	heat	of	the	day	in	the	cool	of	the	pool

It's a lovely lilting meter - a bit like a waltz which carries the reader, featherlike over the story. And of the course the message of this book is delivered in such a simple way - the lines always bring tears to my eyes...

"I'll just have to save him. Because, after all
A person's a person, no matter how small."

Jackie is a writer and founder of Pass It On - a must-have industry newsletter - jackiehoskingpio.wordpress.com.