  | Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! Author: Seuss | |
| Price: $22.39 | ||
Summary:
The students celebrate their unusual teachers and curriculum, including Miss Fribble, who teaches laughing, Miss Bonkers, who teaches frogs to dance.
| Added Entry - Personal Name: | Prelutsky, Jack |
| Illustrator: | Smith, Lane |
Download a Teacher's Guide| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: LG Reading Level: 3.80 Points: .5 Quiz: 19490 | Reading Counts Information: Interest Level: K-2 Reading Level: 3.90 Points: 2.0 Quiz: 05326 | |
Common Core Standards
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Craft & Structure
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Integration of Knowledge & Ideas
Grade 1 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 1.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 1 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 1.RL Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Craft & Structure
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity
Grade 2 → Reading → CCR College & Career Readiness Anchor Standards fo
Grade 2 → Reading → RF Foundational Skills → 2.RF Fluency
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (04/01/98)
School Library Journal (+) (06/98)
Booklist (05/01/98)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (A) (06/98)
The Hornbook (07/98)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 06/01/1998 K-Gr 6--The original talents of Prelutsky and Smith bring an unfinished Dr. Seuss story to life-and what a story it is! The tale revolves around Diffendoofer School, a place where teachers make their own rules and students are taught to think. Their curriculum is an unusual one, covering such topics as smelling, laughing, and how to tell a cactus from a cow, and the school is staffed by people who break all the stereotypes. When the principal informs the students that they must pass a rigorous test or risk being sent to dreary Flobbertown, the tension is palpable, but the inimitable Miss Bonkers is certain they'll pass. In fact, they receive the highest score, saving their school and their rather unorthodox education as well. The story fairly jumps off the page, as do the bright, exuberant collage and oil illustrations, which look like a combination of the familiar Seussian style and Smith's own. A sense of fun reigns supreme, and school comes off looking like a great place to be. Dr. Seuss's well-known books and characters (and even Ted Geisel himself) make cameo appearances throughout the work. The editor's notes on the process of creating the book include original sketches and ideas from Geisel's notebooks. This outstanding work is a must for all collections. Buy extra copies-and be sure to include one for the professional shelf as well. It's a great tribute to the importance of creative thinking in the classroom.--Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI - Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
Bulletin for the Center... - 06/01/1998 Students at the very silly Diffendoofer School are faced with the prospect of a test; failure of that test means that they’ll have to attend classes in dreary Flobbertown (where “their lunches have no taste at all” and “their dogs are scared to bark”). Fortunately, the students’ eccentric education has fitted them perfectly for the exam, which they ace, and the previously worried principal is sufficiently gleeful to abandon his former frown and declare a holiday. This is a fairly entertaining idea, and the rhymes contain some energetic particulars. Unfortunately they also go on rather longer than the story and its elements warrant, and the lines sometimes creak rather than galloping and rely on too-obvious filler for scansion. A multipage afterword (on matte paper to distinguish it from the story proper) includes Geisel’s early sketches and text for the story, and it reveals that the clunkiest parts of the text came from the master himself and that Prelutsky has done noble labor not only in expanding the story but in minimizing the flaws of his source material. Smith’s art achieves a more effective blend, with cutout Seuss characters (and their creator) mingling with the sharper-edged Smith creations in a bubbling illustrative stew that resembles an MTV homage to Seuss’s original plans—young viewers will enjoy identifying those characters who’ve graced previous Seuss books and matching the newer ones to the sketches in the afterword. This will probably appeal most to kids ready to be retro about their Dr. Seuss experience, especially if they’re coveting their siblings’ stories of Sachar’s Wayside School. - Copyright 1998 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
Booklist - 05/01/1998 At his death in 1991, Dr. Seuss left 14 pages of sketches and notes for a story about what he called a pretty different teacher named Miss Bonkers. How this turned into a book titled Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! is explained in an afterword. Essentially it involved commissioning poet Prelutsky and illustrator Smith to finish what Seuss had started. Unsurprisingly, the result is a little Seuss and a lot of Smith and Prelutsky. The completed text, which adds a whimsical story that celebrates individuality, is more faithful to the Seussian spirit (and latter-day didacticism) than the collage pictures, which owe as much to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as they do to The Cat in the Hat On the other hand, Smith's art--as art--is considerably more successful than the singsong text with its often uninspired rhymes. A must purchase for collectors and adult students of Seuss, of course. But as for kids--why not simply introduce them to the real stuff? (Reviewed May 1, 1998) - Copyright 1998 Booklist.
