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The Lorax (Classic Seuss) (Hardcover) (Hardcover)
by Dr. Seuss
| Category:
Ecology, Classics, Ages 4-8, Children's book |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
The Lorax is an ecological warning against mindless progress and the danger it posed to the earth's natural beauty. |
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Author: Dr. Seuss
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Pub. in: August, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Pages: 72
Measurements: 11.3 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00100
Other information:
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- MSL Picks -
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss is an entertaining, but serious book. The Lorax is a very caring creature who cares deeply about the environment. The Once-ler on the other hand is two timing and only cares deeply about money. The main character, The Once-ler decides to open a factory. He cuts down a tree and The Lorax pops out. He warns the Once-ler that he is destroying the environment around him. The story is set as the Once-ler retells a young man his story from the top of a dark and dank tower that he never comes out of. The tower is located on the outskirts of a very desolate and barren town, and there is no living thing in sight. Although this story is fiction it still sends a very strong message about the environment. Many other books written by Dr. Seuss were meant only to be funny or clever; The Lorax is different. It sends a strong message about what we do to the environment that even little kids can interoperate. Dr. Seuss made words and pictures come alive in his stories, but he has never painted a more serious picture in our minds then he did in The Lorax. The morale of his story is dead serious and can even be used in this day and age. Other authors can drown you in facts about the environment and bore you to death. Dr. Seuss sends the same message that those authors want to send but in a form that kids can interoperate and that adults can enjoy reading. The morale of the story is that unless someone cares and fights for what is right the world's environment could be destroyed. Dr. Seuss truly out did himself in this story.
Target readers:
Kids aged 4-8
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Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904. After attending Dartmouth College and Oxford University, he began a career in advertising. His advertising cartoons, featuring Quick, Henry, the Flit! Appeared in several leading American magazines. Dr. Seuss's first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, hit the market in 1937, and the world of children's literature was changed forever! In 1957, Seuss's The Cat in the Hat became the prototype for one of Random House's best- selling series, Beginner Books. This popular series combined engaging stories with outrageous illustrations and playful sounds to teach basic reading skills. Brilliant, playful, and always respectful of children, Dr. Seuss charmed his way into the consciousness of four generations of youngsters and parents. In the process, he helped kids learn to read.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and three Academy Awards, Seuss was the author and illustrator of 44 children's books, some of which have been made into audiocassettes, animated television specials, and videos for children of all ages. Even after his death in 1991, Dr. Seuss continues to be the best-selling author of children's books in the world.
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"UNLESS someone like you...cares a whole awful lot...nothing is going to get better...It's not."
Long before saving the earth became a global concern, Dr. Seuss, speaking through his character the Lorax, warned against mindless progress and the danger it posed to the earth's natural beauty.
"The big, colorful pictures and the fun images, word plays and rhymes make this an amusing exposition of the ecology crisis."
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Michael W. Howe (MSL quote), Chicago, IL
<2006-12-30 00:00>
12 years ago at the old age of eight, I received this book and found it quite great! My parents had read me of this and of that, of Berenstein Bears and a Cat in a Hat. This book in itself makes quite a statement, sounding nothing quite like a drawn-out old lament. The story involved something unlike you or me, a being called a Once-ler, who we never do see. He tells his story from a boarded old store, and will not answer you if you knock at his door. But for the right price, he'll tell you the tale, and here is that story, in some minor detail: While travelling across lands and seas, the old once-ler found the Truffula trees. When he chopped down one tree there was a loud thump, and the Lorax appeared right out of that stump. He warned the Once-ler of what he was for, but the Once-ler didn't listen and thought him a bore. With cutting down trees, was born a Thneed, a so-called "Fine thing that all people need." The Once-ler made many, and money to spare, but his doing caused many to sadly despair. He polluted the air, he gummed up the pond, he cut down the trees til they soon were all gone. A sad story yes, but sad is to say, such examples of Once-lers can be found today. Dr. Seuss wrote this story out of will and good faith, but unless we heed it's warning, it may be too late. |
Z. D. Houghton (MSL quote), Indianapolis, IN
<2006-12-30 00:00>
When I was younger, this was just a fun book with an ending I didn't like. As I got older, it became...well, a fun book with an ending I didn't like, but definitely understood.
If you tell one of the uninitiated that Dr. Seuss wrote one of the most readable yet chilling cautionary tales of our environment, you will probably be greeted with laughter. But in this book, Seuss has created something so simple, yet so meaningful, that it cannot help but get its point across.
The illustrations, I think, is what really hits home for me. The scenes before the Oncler arrives are so radiantly hued and multicolored-only to turn drab under an eventually brown and darkened sky.
The last time I read this book, I just sat there when I had finished, looking at the last page. Pretentious eco-intellectualism on my part? Perhaps. But I don't think so. |
Samanthia Noble (MSL quote), Oxford, Ohio United States
<2006-12-30 00:00>
It's not The Cat in the Hat. This Dr. Seuss book has a message. Believe it or not, the first time I was exposed to The Lorax was in my undergraduate Ecology course. It tells a story of greed and excess. It also shows that what we do impacts the environment and other species. The Lorax pops in now and then to remind the greedy Onceler that he is cutting down too many trees, destroying other animals homes, and polluting the air and water to boot. However, his message isn't well received and finally the last tree falls. It is only at the end the the Onceler realizes his mistake, but is powerless to act. It is up to you. "Unless someone like you care a whole lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." It is important to note though that it is all done in typical Dr. Seuss fashion, with rhyming and nonsensical words that makes his work so popular with kids. I would have to agree that this may be the most important Dr. Seuss book ever. |
T. W. Fuller (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
Children used to Dr. Seuss' lighthearted, whimsical stories filled with wacky names and places will undoubtedly perceive a vast difference with The Lorax. It still contains the wacky names, places, and rhymes, so characteristic of Seuss, but with one blatant overtone. This story goes all out to show the devastating consequences of human greed, and what can happen to the environment when humans misuse and take advantage of nature and natural resources.
The story begins when a boy comes to the home of a peculiar creature called Once-ler. The boy wants to know about something called the Lorax; "what it was", and "why it was there". After paying the Once-ler a small fee, he narrates the story for the boy. The pictures incorporated into the story are also poignant; for, as we see in the beginning, the small town in which the Once-ler lives is very grey and barren.
However, as the Once-ler begins his story, the pictures become brighter, more cheerful, and colorful, as we see how the town once looked, long, long ago. There were animals, birds, green grass ... and trees!
The Once-ler says, "I came to this glorious place. And I first saw the trees. The Truffula trees". Transfixed by these trees, the Once-ler cuts one down to make a "Thneed". Now, a Thneed is supposed to be a useful thing, which people can find many uses for. Shortly after the first tree is cut down, the Lorax appears. He explains that he talks on behalf of the trees, because the trees cannot talk for themselves. "They have no tongues".
The Lorax is very upset at what the Once-ler has done. But the Once-ler ignores him, and continues to cut down the trees to make Thneeds, until all the trees have been cut down. This action, of cutting down the trees, building a factory to make the thneeds, and releasing waste residue into the water is greatly illustrated in the pictures, showing the cause and effect of polluting the environment.
Eventually the pictures return to the grey, morbid colors we see in the beginning. The Lorax has had to make all the birds, animals and fish leave the town before they die of hunger and starvation, and before they choke to death on all the smog generated by the Once-ler's factory.
As we can clearly see in The Lorax, Dr. Seuss is making a very defined political statement about how humans have manipulated and destroyed our natural surroundings for their own personal greed. The Lorax was written in 1971, in the hayday of environmental activism, and one year after the first Earth Day.
Still, Dr. Suess does not make this story into a gloomy one. He gives us hope. The Once-ler tosses down a seed to the boy - the one last remaining Truffula seed. With this one seed, Dr. Seuss tells us the possibilities are endless, and hope is not lost.
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