Read Green Eggs and Ham free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham is a funny rhyming book for 5 year olds about a plate of food that somebody REALLY doesn't want to eat.
It starts with Sam. Sam rides in on a very odd-looking creature, waving a sign so everyone knows exactly who's arrived. Sitting in an armchair with a newspaper is a tall, shaggy character in an even taller black hat. And that character is not impressed.
Then Sam brings out the plate. Green eggs. Green ham. The answer is no.
But Sam doesn't give up. The plate gets offered in a little house with a mouse, then in a box swinging from a tree with a fox inside. Before long there's a car, a train, a dark tunnel and a goat involved (and things are about to go very wrong for that train).
Reading it is all about the build. Every new offer gets turned down, and the list of places the grump won't eat them gets longer and longer. By the time everyone's heading for the sea it's practically a chant. If your reader likes joining in, they'll be saying no along with the grump before you've turned many pages!
For a child reading on their own, the lines are short and the words are small. They repeat, with one new rhyming word dropped in each time, so a newer reader can often guess what's coming from the picture. It's one of the Beginner Books, made for children to try by themselves, and it's easily finished in one go.
The pictures tell a lot of the jokes too. Sam keeps that plate held high through a car crash, a collapsing railway and a dunk in the sea. Who knew anyone could be that determined about breakfast?
No spoilers about what happens when they're all bobbing about in the water and the plate comes round one more time. But the last few pages are very satisfying. Anyone who's ever been told to just TRY something will know the feeling.
If this one goes down well, The Cat in the Hat is by Dr. Seuss too, with the same Beginner Books badge on the cover. This time it's Dick and Sally stuck in the house on a cold, wet day, and a cat in a tall striped hat.
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