Bartholomew and the Oobleck: (caldecott Honor Book)

"Bartholomew and the Oobleck" was possibly my favorite Seuss book, when I was a kid. I was an experienced reader by the time "The Cat in the Hat" came out, so I wasn't entirely taken by Dr. Seuss's silliness, but I could admire his off-the-wall humor. "Bartholomew" however, was downright scary. And it wasn't in doggerel rhyme, so it had the flavour of the science fiction books I liked to read. Bartholomew, the king's page, saves the kingdom from the King's insatiable desire to have the latest, the newest and the unusual, even if it means disaster. In this case, the King orders the royal magicians to create something better than boring old rain or snow (possibly the Kingdom is in Buffalo, New York, Detroit or Boston, where the amount and quality of precipitation is of the sort to have you nodding at the wisdom of the King's request.) The magicians create Oobleck, a snotty-green, sticky substance that effectively provides national unity by gluing the entire place, people and all, together. As you probably suspected as a child, and forgot as an adult, Oobleck is symbolic of nuclear fallout. At the time Seuss wrote "Barthomew and the Oobleck", the world was in the grip of the Cold War and the index fingers of two nations were poised on the doomsday button. Seuss's magicians (scientists) don't exactly know what Oobleck is or does, but they are happy to release it on the world. Seuss is incredibly sly and clever here--there was a lot of thought that fallout and residual radiation with half-lives of thousands of years might not be so terrific to loose on the world, yet here we are, 50 years later or so, looking down the barrel of a nuclear Iran. Right on, Dr. Seuss. Back in that frightening time of the Cold War in the US, children were taught to dive under their desks in air raid drills and cover their necks with their hands. Now, as a child, I considered the utter stupidity of this exercise. Firstly, I didn't find the small wood-and-metal desk to be adequate at all for my larger-than-average frame (I was a tall kid) and since nuclear weapons gave off radiation just like x-rays, why wouldn't the fallout go right through your spindly hands and irradiate your neck, just like those xray boxes in shoe stores that showed Mummy why you needed corrective shoes (now, there was a bad, bad, marketing idea.) Dr. Seuss's horrific yet comic book about Oobleck really resonated with me as a child, and I think it's a brilliant book of satire. It won the Caldecott Medal, and I think it has often been overlooked for the more sunny of Dr. Seuss's books. But it's brilliant, and I think it's just as timely today as a book for the family as ever. Kinda...sticks....with you. Really.

Kids "get it", but do adults? I was surprised that my young neices and nephews got so much out of this story. The notion that wise men are often doing foolish things, that kings are often bad leaders, that the whims of the powerful wreak havoc on everyone else when indulged, and that children are the future (for better or worse), all come together here. And there are some things in life that are best left as they are, but that's not obvious until they're altered. Perhaps weather manipualation will become as common as irrigation and power distribution in the future. But until then, this (like many "Dr. Seuss" titles) is a book that uses the vehicle of a children's tale to make some very profound statements that speak to adults as well.

This book is a great motivational book for science class. After reading about the gooey sticky oobleck, take corn starch, water and food coloring to make your own oobleck. It looks like a liquad, but feels like a liquad and a solid! The kids love it

One of the few sequels Suess wrote,it is also one of the best.King Derwin wants to control the weather and has his magicians(in their secret cave in Neeka-Tave)conjur up a brand-new substance-which not even they know all about.The oobleck storm messes up the kingdom the day it falls-and King Derwin realizes how to stop it. With a little-okay,a big-help from Bartholemew, the King sees that the best magic words are the simplest ones.

Boy, this book takes me back when I was very young. I really enjoyed it. And, now that I'm considerably older, I still enjoy it. It is a story about a king who is bored with the things that fall from the sky (for example, rain, snow, etc.) and orders his magicians to make something new. They come up with oobleck, a green, gooey substance. But, when it begins to fall, it messes up everything and the king's page, Bartholomew, teaches the king the power of the words, "I'm sorry." The book was a 1950 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustration in a children's book.