Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose (Dr. Seuss Classics Series)

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Overview

The story of a moose who was too hospitable for his own good "is told in verses which march in double-quick time. The pictures are scenes of happy confusion."—The New York Times.  

A rhyming nonsense story about a kindly moose that provides a home for too many stray animals.

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More About This Book

Overview

The story of a moose who was too hospitable for his own good "is told in verses which march in double-quick time. The pictures are scenes of happy confusion."—The New York Times.  

A rhyming nonsense story about a kindly moose that provides a home for too many stray animals.

Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780394800868
  • Publisher: Random House Children's Books
  • Publication date: 9/28/1948
  • Series: Classic Seuss Series
  • Pages: 48
  • Sales rank: 77,548
  • Age range: 5 - 9 Years
  • Product dimensions: 8.32 (w) x 11.18 (h) x 0.39 (d)

Meet the Author

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.  

Biography

Now that generations of readers have been reared on The Cat in the Hat and Fox in Socks, it's easy to forget how colorless most children's books were before Dr. Seuss reinvented the genre. When the editorial cartoonist Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street in 1936, the book was turned down by 27 publishers, many of whom said it was "too different." Geisel was about to burn his manuscript when it was rescued and published, under the pen name Dr. Seuss, by a college classmate.

Over the next two decades, Geisel concocted such delightfully loopy tales as The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and Horton Hears a Who. Most of his books earned excellent reviews, and three received Caldecott Honor Awards. But it was the 1957 publication of The Cat in the Hat that catapulted Geisel to celebrity.

Rudolf Flesch's book Why Johnny Can't Read, along with a related Life magazine article, had recently charged that children's primers were too pallid and bland to inspire an interest in reading. The Cat in the Hat, written with 220 words from a first-grade vocabulary list, "worked like a karate chop on the weary little world of Dick, Jane and Spot," as Ellen Goodman wrote in The Detroit Free Press. With its vivid illustrations, rhyming text and topsy-turvy plot, Geisel's book for beginning readers was anything but bland. It sold nearly a million copies within three years.

Geisel was named president of Beginner Books, a new venture of Random House, where he worked with writers and artists like P.D. Eastman, Michael Frith, Al Perkins, and Roy McKie, some of whom collaborated with him on book projects. For books he wrote but didn't illustrate, Geisel used the pen name Theo LeSieg (LeSieg is Geisel spelled backwards).

As Dr. Seuss, he continued to write bestsellers. Some, like Green Eggs and Ham and the tongue-twisting Fox in Socks, were aimed at beginning readers. Others could be read by older children or read aloud by parents, who were often as captivated as their kids by Geisel's wit and imagination. Geisel's visual style appealed to television and film directors, too: The animator Chuck Jones, who had worked with Geisel on a series of Army training films, brought How the Grinch Stole Christmas! to life as a hugely popular animated TV special in 1966. A live-action movie starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch was released in 2000.

Many Dr. Seuss stories have serious undertones: The Butter Battle Book, for example, parodies the nuclear arms race. But whether he was teaching vocabulary words or values, Geisel never wrote plodding lesson books. All his stories are animated by a lively sense of visual and verbal play. At the time of his death in 1991, his books had sold more than 200 million copies. Bennett Cerf, Geisel's publisher, liked to say that of all the distinguished authors he had worked with, only one was a genius: Dr. Seuss.

Good To Know

The Cat in the Hat was written at the urging of editor William Spaulding, who insisted that a book for first-graders should have no more than 225 words. Later, Bennett Cerf bet Geisel $50 that he couldn't write a book with just 50 words. Geisel won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham, though to his recollection, Cerf never paid him the $50.

Geisel faced another challenge in 1974, when his friend Art Buchwald dared him to write a political book. Geisel picked up a copy of Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! and a pen, crossed out each mention of the name "Marvin K. Mooney," and replaced it with "Richard M. Nixon." Buchwald reprinted the results in his syndicated column. Nine days later, President Nixon announced his resignation.

The American Heritage Dictionary says the word "nerd" first appeared in print in the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo: "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo / And bring back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo / A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" The word "grinch," after the title character in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, is defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as a killjoy or spoilsport.

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    1. Also Known As:
      Theodor Seuss Geisel (full name); also: Theo LeSieg, Rosetta Stone
    1. Date of Birth:
      March 2, 1904
    2. Place of Birth:
      Springfield, Massachusetts
    1. Date of Death:
      September 4, 1991
    2. Place of Death:
      La Jolla, California

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 5
( 10 )
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Sort by: Showing all of 10 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 6, 2001

    Get Stuffed! Fish and Guests Smell in Three Days!

    Thidwick's adventure begins simply enough. He is marching along on the shores of Lake Winna-Bango, on the far northern shore, looking for moose-moss to eat with 60 other moose. A small Bingle Bug nicely asks Thidwick for a ride 'for a way.' Thickwick replies, 'I'm happy to share!' Most of us would have said the same. But what happens when a guest overstays her or his welcome? In Thidwick's case, his horns become a veritable zoo of wildlife. There is a Tree-Spider spinning a web, a Zinn-a-zu Bird who gets married and builds a nest, and their uncle the woodpecker who pecks holes the squirrel family inhabits. And so on it goes, to include a bobcat, turtle, fox, mice, fleas, a big bear . . . and 362 bees! Thidwick is like the horse in Animal Farm. He's providing all of the work and benefit, and everyone is bossing him around. Why, they won't even agree to let him leave with the other moose to find more moose moss. Why is Thidwick willing to put up with this? What are the benefits of having a big heart in this situation? How does Thidwick end up in this mess? Well, having accepted the Bingle Bug, the subsequent guests ignore Thidwick and ask the earlier guests instead if they can move in. Thidwick honors his first commitment, extends it in time and to the new inhabitants. As a result of Thidwick's dilemma, this book provides a good opportunity to discuss sharing with your child . . . and explain the benefits and limits of sharing. Your child will run into people who will try to take advantage. This gives you a chance to ask your child what he or she would do in Thidwick's situation. The story's resolution is a most original and humorous one that makes good use of the mental picture of shedding your onorous burdens. This story is illustrated by Dr. Seuss, as well as written in his best rhyming way. The drawings of the creatures in Thidwick's horns come close to matching many of Dr. Seuss's most imaginative mechanical devices. The horns of this dilemma are funnier than those devices, because this concoction is based on animals and natural processes. The story is a pretty easy one for five to six year olds to learn to read, because many of the words are short and rhyme. The illustrations also 'name' many of the nouns. The humor provides 'hooks' for memorizing the words. I also liked the idea of i

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 28, 2009

    A great Seuss tale!

    As with most of the Seuss books, this one is great for kids of ALL ages - great story, illustrations and message. It should be better known!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted April 21, 2009

    Thidwick

    Love Dr. Suess books for my children. Haven't come across one that I didn't like. This was no exception.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 10, 2000

    A wonderful story

    This was one of my favorite books as a youth and was my 3 year old son's first favorite. A wonderful story of a moose who is too kind and what he indures because of this. Easily one of the Doctor's best !

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted December 6, 2011

    Wonderful book

    Thidwick is a wonderful childrens book and was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. I'm hoping my nephew will enjoy it as much. One of Dr. Seuss' best.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 20, 2011

    A very cute story

    I loved this book when i was a child and I was very excited to find it so that I can read it to my children.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 21, 2011

    Highly recommended

    This is by far the best children's book on the illegal immigration problem in the US. I realize that it was written sixty years ago, but as I was reading through this book with my son I was struck by its powerful message: be generous and hospitable but know that others will try to take advantage of you. My son objected at numerous points throughout the book to the injustice of those who were taking Thidwick for granted, demanding more and more and denying him the right to pursue what he knew was in his own best interests.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 3, 2008

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 4, 2012

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 26, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

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