Blog Review: "The Sneetches, By Dr. Suess" by Julia Frankel

     Julia Frankel's post, "The Sneetches, by Dr. Suess" not only observes and analyzed The Sneetches, but also examines Dr. Suess's life and reasons for writing the book. Julia took risks with her ideas, but still supported them with enough reasoning. The post is well written and formal, and seemingly more researched than her other posts. Julia seems to really put creative and artistic thought into her writing, such as when she wrote her post about Malala Yousafzai and included a poem as her opening paragraph. I think that Julia is a very stylized writer and this shows through in her posts, especially in her post on Dr. Suess.

     In Julia's post, she mentions that Dr. Seuss was a german immigrant. She theorizes that the yellow stars on the star bellied sneetches symbolize the armbands Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust, that the book was not about vague discrimination but about anti-Semitism. I find this to be an extremely interesting and creative theory, and Julia elaborates on it enough and supports it with evidence in order to show how reasonable the theory actually is. I love how Julia thinks analytically about this children's book and then takes it a step further by relating the story's symbolism to the author's own life. The more I think about Julia's ideas on the post, the more I relate them to the book and see the connections. 
     Not only does Julia acknowledge the social issue, but she also relates to it. She writes that, "Being a jew myself, it is particularly difficult to look back at that time period and learn about the basis of which people were judged and treated." She shows simple text-to-self connections which push her post to a higher level. 
     Julia's theory on the yellow stars symbolizing the armbands shows in depth thinking, but also helped me think about the picture book with a fresh mind, both implanting my own new theories on the book, and causing me to wonder what deep messages Dr. Seuss has imbedded in his other books. The entire idea of an authors own experience influencing a picture book is incredibly interesting. It caused me to relate back to Dr. Seuss's book, The Lorax, and how Dr. Seuss experience may effect this book. The Lorax was published August 12, 1971. During this time, global warming ideas were just forming, and pollution is a recurring theme in his book.
     All in all, Julia is a strong writer and this shows through in her posts. This post especially showed creative theories with a large amount of insight and observation. Her ideas have influenced my own view of The Sneetches.

http://onwords1.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-grass-is-always-greener-on-other.html