Reproducible • Thematic • With Cross-Curricular Extension Activities

There’s A Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom

Bradley Chalkers IS the oldest kid in the fifth grade. He tells enormous lies. He picks fights with girls. No one likes him—except Carla, the new school counselor. She thinks Bradley is sensitive and generous, and knows that Bradley could change, if only he weren’t afraid to try. But when you feel like the most-hated kid in the whole school, believing in yourself can be the hardest thing in the world. . . .

If I Ran the Zoo

Young Gerald McGrew thinks of all sorts of unusual animals he'd have in a zoo. Dr. Seuss at his best.

If I Ran the Circus

Behind Mr. Sneelock's ramshackle store, there's an empty lot. Little Morris McGurk is convinced that if he could just clear out the rusty cans, the dead tree, and the old cars, nothing would prevent him from using the lot for the amazing, world-beating, Circus McGurkus. The more elaborate Morris' dreams about the circus become, the more they depend on the sleepy-looking and innocent Sneelock, who stands outside his ramshackle store sucking on a pipe, oblivious to the fate that awaits him in the depths of Morris's imagination.

McElligot's Pool

It is a tale of a boy named Marco who is ridiculed for fishing in a small, polluted pool. In typical Seussian fashion, when confronted with the limitations of his situation, the young boy imagines ways in which he could catch any number of any kind of fish in the small pool.
The simple story features many Seussian themes, including the imaginative boy and his fantastic fancied fish. However, it is far more repetitive than his later works. The illustrations are shaded colored pencil rather than the later pen and ink which defined his style. Marco's mind goes from the logical to the ridiculous and Dr. Seuss provides fanciful images of fish as a child would imagine them by their name alone.