Green Eggs and Ham

Green Eggs and Ham is a best-selling and critically acclaimed book by Dr. Seuss (a pen-name of Theodor Seuss Geisel), first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2001, according to Publishers Weekly, it was the fourth-best-selling English-language children's book (novel) of all time.^[1]

Storyline

A character known as "Sam I Am" pesters another character to taste the bizarre-looking titular dish. He declines, claiming to dislike the delicacy in question. However, the persistent Sam I Am will not cease following him around and trying to encourage him to try the green eggs and ham, asking him if he will sample the dish if he does it in various locations (like a boat or a house) and with an assortment of dining partners (like a goat or a mouse). At the end, the disgruntled character gives in to the nonstop nagging of Sam I Am and tries a bite of green eggs and ham, which he finds he does indeed like.

Lexicon

Green Eggs and Ham is one of Seuss's "Beginner Books", written in a very simple vocabulary for beginning readers.

The vocabulary of the text consists of just fifty different words^[2] and was the result of a bet between Seuss and Bennett Cerf (Dr. Seuss's publisher)^[2][3] that Seuss (after completing The Cat in the Hat using 225 words) could not complete an entire book using so few words.

The 50 are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.^[2]

Reception

Green Eggs and Ham was first published on August 12, 1960,^[4][5] and became the fourth-best selling English-language children's hardcover book of all time.^[1][6] In 1999, the National Education Association conducted an online survey of children and teachers, seeking the 100 most popular children's books. On the children's list, Green Eggs and Ham was ranked third, just above another Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat.^[7] Teachers ranked it fourth.^[8]

Adaptations and tributes

Green Eggs and Ham is the third of the three Geisel stories that were adapted into the television special Dr. Seuss on the Loose, which featured a connecting narration by The Cat In The Hat, in 1973. (The Sneetches and The Zax were the other two.)

On September 21, 2007, U.S. District Court Judge James Muirhead used Green Eggs and Ham in his court ruling after receiving an egg in the mail from prisoner Charles Jay Wolff who was protesting the prison diet. Muirhead ordered the egg destroyed as he stated in his judgment:^[9][10]

I do not like eggs in the file.

I do not like them in any style.

I will not take them fried or boiled.

I will not take them poached or broiled.

I will not take them soft or scrambled,

Despite an argument well-rambled.

No fan I am of the egg at hand.

Destroy that egg! Today! Today!

Today I say!

Without delay!

In a Mormon journal, clearly parodying arguments for the Book of Mormon,^[11] it has been jokingly suggested that, within Green Eggs and Ham, "the rich presence of complex chiasmi, multiple Hebraicisms, Israelite cultural references, and Old Testament themes supports the theory that Green Eggs and Ham is, in fact, an ancient text of Semitic origin. Theodor Geisel... clearly is not the author of the book... No doubt, inspired scholars will soon research and discover the answers to these and many other questions as this complicated but vital narrative finally receives the serious academic scrutiny it so richly merits."^[12]

"Weird Al" Yankovic recited a portion of Green Eggs and Ham on video^[13] to the tune of Numb by U2. The performance was done while Weird Al was being subjected to abuse, and it was expected that his tolerance wear out before the end of the poem.

References