The Eye Book

by Dr. Seuss

And so we say, "Hooray for eyes! Hooray, hooray, hooray... for eyes!"

Our eyes see flies. Our eyes see ants. Sometimes they see pink underpants. Oh, say can you see? Dr. Seuss's hilarious ode to eyes gives little ones a whole new appreciation for all the wonderful things to be seen!

Bright and Early Books
The Cat in the Hat proudly presents books for the youngest of the young! The stories are brief and funny, the words are few and easy and have a happy, catchy rhythm, and the pictures are clear and colorful cues to the text.

Dr. Seuss and his unique combination of hilarious stories, zany pictures, and riotous rhymes, have been delighting young children and helping them learn to read for over fifty years. Creator of classics such as 'The Cat in the Hat' (1957), 'Green Eggs and Ham' (1960), and 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas!' (1957), he is still ranked among the world's top children's authors, with nearly half a billion books sold worldwide.

Age Range: 0–8+ / Grade level 1–Preschool+ / Lexile 140L

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Fiction, Poetry, Kids, Bodies, Classics

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Also wrote as Theodore Seuss Geisel, see https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born 2 March 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated Dartmouth College in 1925, and proceeded on to Oxford University with the intent of acquiring a doctorate in literature. At Oxford he met Helen Palmer, who he wed in 1927. He returned from Europe in 1927, and began working for a magazine called Judge, the leading humor magazine in America at the time, submitting both cartoons and humorous articles for them. Additionally, he was submitting cartoons to Life, Vanity Fair and Liberty. In some of his works, he'd made reference to an insecticide called Flit. These references gained notice, and led to a contract to draw comic ads for Flit. This association lasted 17 years, gained him national exposure, and coined the catchphrase "Quick, Henry, the Flit!"

In 1936 on the way to a vacation in Europe, listening to the rhythm of the ship's engines, he came up with And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, which was then promptly rejected by the first 43 publishers he showed it to. Eventually in 1937 a friend published the book for him, and it went on to at least moderate success.

During World War II, Geisel joined the army and was sent to Hollywood. Captain Geisel would write for Frank Capra's Signal Corps Unit (for which he won the Legion of Merit) and do documentaries (he won Oscar's for Hitler Lives and Design for Death). He also created a cartoon called Gerald McBoing-Boing which also won him an Oscar.

In May of 1954, Life published a report concerning illiteracy among school children. The report said, among other things, that children were having trouble to read because their books were boring. This inspired Geisel's publisher, and prompted him to send Geisel a list of 400 words he felt were important, asked him to cut the list to 250 words (the publishers idea of how many words at one time a first grader could absorb), and write a book. Nine months later, Geisel, using 220 of the words given to him published The Cat in the Hat , which went on to instant success.

In 1960 Bennett Cerf bet Geisel $50 that he couldn't write an entire book using only fifty words. The result was Green Eggs and Ham . Cerf never paid the $50 from the bet.

Helen Palmer Geisel died in 1967. Theodor Geisel married Audrey Stone Diamond in 1968. Theodor Seuss Geisel died 24 September 1991.

Also worked under the pen name: Theo Le Sieg

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then these characters have some HUGE windows. This is a simple story about a boy and his rabbit and eyes. They see things. Imagine that. I like the soft, round art. This story is for young kids. There isn’t much here.

The kids loved it. Both of them. They thought it was cute and had fun going through the story. They gave it 4 stars.

[Mariah Roze · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice beginning read book. Great for students to practice reading.

[David Sarkies · Rating 4 out of 5]

All about eyes
17 November 2012

Hey, this book is so simple that I can translate most of it into German without going to a dictionary.

Das Auge Buch
Auge, Augen.
Meine Augen, Meine Augen.
Seine Augen, Seine Augen.
Zwinke Auge, Zwinke Auge.
Rosa Auge, rosa Auge.
Meine Augen Seiht, er Augen Seiht.
Ich sehe ihm, er seiht mich.
Unsere Augen sehen blau, unsere Augen sehen rott.
Sie sehen ein Vogel, Sie sehen ein Bett.
Sie sehen den Sonne, Sie sehen den Mond.
Sie sehen eine Gabel, ein Messer, und einen Loffel.
Sie sehen eine Madchen, Sie sehen einen Mensch, ein Junge, ein Pferd, und einen Alte Zinn Dose.

I think I will leave it at that, though I am not sure how well my German translation of a Dr Suess book (and this is a legitimate Dr Suess book because Theo LeSieg is Dr Suess, though while he put his own name as opposed to his pen name on this book is beyond me).

I can't say that it is one of my favourite books (and I feel that we have lost some to the poetry, actually a lot of the poetry, with the German translation which, by the way, involved some guess work – but at least I can make an attempt to translate the Dr Suess books into German, which is much easier than the Little Golden books). Well, the next Dr Suess book on my list is the Nose Book, but I won't be reading that just yet.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look at all the wonderful things our eyes let us see! This book 'looks' at the eye - and explains how the eye lets us look at the world around us. This could be considered a 'proto' STEM book for a very small child who is already showing interest in the human body. And what parent doesn't want there child to become a doctor!

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Synopsis: ""My eyes see. His eyes see. I see him. And he sees me." With text as simple as simple can be, Theo. LeSieg (a.k.a. Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) uses humor and rhythm to encourage the very youngest children to discover the joy of reading. A big-eyed boy and a pink-eyed rabbit cavort through the book, seeing everything there is to see: a girl, a horse, an old tin can, the sun, the moon--even pink underpants (which makes them both blush). Rhyming objects give the brief "story" a lilting, happy cadence, and Joe Mathieu's cartoonish colorful pictures provide easy clues to the text. This is a friendly introduction to the wide, wondrous world of seeing and reading."

My Review: This is a very cute book! Munchkin loved the rhyming and the pictures and kept pointing at the rabbit, in fact he kept turning the book over when we finished and opened it to read again. I like the rhythm of the book and the fact that it rhymes but they aren't crazy tongue twisters. I have a feeling this will be on our regularly read shelf!

[Skylar Burris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like these Bright and Early Books for Beginners for my Kindergartener, who is just learning to read. The words are simple, repetitive, and often rhyming, which helps her to pick them up more quickly, but the pictures are cute and colorful enough to capture her attention.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5

kayla read this to me ty queen

[Grace Huey · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Is it okay if i don’t say anything about the book?” Yep, it is.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent earlyreader preschool book. The pictures are bright and engaging with the words at beginner level. I guess on average, most kids will have the book memorized after 2-3 reads. Books like this are essential if you want your children to have a head start in reading.

[Judah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this book.

[Radwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

like the foot book, this one is all about the eyes, in his usual wholesome rhymes. liked the art style here, it's not dr. seuss, but it was refreshing and cute.

"My eyes see. His eyes see. I see him. and he sees me."
"our eyes see trees. they look at clocks. they look at bees, they look at socks."

[Cam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute book....

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute book. Not Dr. Seuss but sold in a baby board book set. Lots of rhymes and colors.

[Chantelle]

Thanks Kayla

[Chrisanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure why E liked it. It's definitely too old for her. But she did.

[Elizabeth Meadows · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't remember reading this one when my kids were young, which is too bad. It's a great book for very young readers and listeners.

[Randy Astle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading through all of Dr. Seuss's books chronologically, and this is his thirty-second one. At least I'm listing it as his thirty-second book: it took considerable research to compile my list of sixty-three books, because as far as I've been able to find no such list exists online or even in Brian Jay Jones' biography. And what we have here is two books coming out in the fall of 1968, this one evidently published on September 12th, and The Foot Book in October. That would place this one first, but I also found a source saying The Foot Book was the first title in Seuss's second imprint at Random House, Bright and Early Books. So the best I can say is that they came out in tandem, I don't know which he finished first, and so together we can call them his thirty-second and thirty-third books; I'll read The Foot Book next.

The story behind Bright and Early Books is that the Beginner Books imprint for the youngest readers, launched with the limited rhyming vocabulary of The Cat in the Hat in 1957, was a big success, bringing in multiple authors and including eight Dr. Seuss titles at this point—that last one was Fox in Socks in 1965. So the boss Robert Bernstein at Random House evidently saw the potential for an new imprint focused on even younger readers, little kids who hardly knew how to talk. The sentences would max out at three or four words, the vocabulary would be minimal—these were real primers back in the "See Dick" level of complexity. Just, hopefully, more fun.

Either Seuss, Bernstein or someone else thought body parts would be a good sensorial topic to launch the imprint, because in addition to The Eye Book and Ear Book (both of which Seuss wrote under his traditional Beginner Books pseudonym Theo. L. LeSieg), they also published The Ear Book by Al Perkins, and I guess the unrelated Inside, Outside, Upside Down by Stan and Jan Berenstain, a Berenstain Bears book about prepositions for younger readers than their usual books.

So that's where the book came from, and Seuss's text fits the bill: remarkably simple, working in good rhymes and repetition for learning (I imagine kids are essentially learning all this vocabulary as sight words, not through phonics), and still managing to be fun for little kids. It's essentially his eleventh "list book," a book whose entire narrative is essentially the narrator listing different things. Usually that's people or animals, as in all the birds in Scrambled Eggs Super and all the fish in McElligot's Pool, but it could be circus acts or, in the very first one, things that he saw on Mulberry Street. Here it's much simpler, just a rhyming list of things you can see with your eyes, with a corresponding illustration as a clue for kids to read the word. No crazy creatures. It's narrative distilled to its simplest possibility, and it works great for some really ambitious words, like "an old tin can" and "pink underpants." Great stuff.

Now my beef here is with Random House in the 1990s. Almost all of Seuss's books have been continually in print since first published, but once again Random House decided to replace the original illustrations by the great Roy McKie, who Seuss worked with repeatedly, with a completely new version by Joe Mathieu. He's great too, working on lots of Sesame Street titles and other things. But I'm conservative enough with my kids' media to want to share the original with youngsters rather than some slick new version—just like showing them classic episodes of Sesame Street, for instance, as well as new ones. So the version of the book I got from the New York library was Mathieu's, and when this has happened in the past I've been able to find a pdf of the original online. But I can't even do that this time! Just an image of a cover, or a few photos on a site selling a copy for over $1,300. Supply and demand. It's annoying to me when an original version gets completely removed from existence, like when Random House halted publication of a clutch of books with culturally insensitive material: not only did they stop publishing them, which was appropriate, but it seems like the wider world worked overtime to remove them from existence entirely. Why should the NYPL, which I think is the largest library system in the country, remove those books from their collections and make them unavailable to kids and families who want to negotiate their way through them? That's what libraries are for—providing readers with challenging and hard to find texts. At least those books are all online, though; I think the humble little noncontroversial Eye Book is just a victim of neglect.

So anyway, Mathieu's illustrations are fine, like I said, but I won't bother analyzing them here since they don't really fit into my chronological investigation of Seuss's oeuvre. I do, however, have to step back away from the book and into his biography, because with this title we've finally reached the great black hole at the center of his personal life. Geisel had been married to Helen Palmer Geisel for years, and after a few years in California they became friends with Audrey Grace Florine Stone and her husband. Ted (Seuss) and Audrey began an affair, which carried on right as his wife Helen, who had sacrificed her career as an author for his, suffered a paralyzing illness. She was trapped in bed, in pain, while he was off openly running around with one of her best friends. At some point she became aware and on October 23, 1967 she committed suicide, leaving a note that strongly implicated the affair, not her illness, as the reason why. In May 1968 Geisel wrote to friends that he and Audrey were going get married, which was basically happening just as quickly as she could finalize a divorce. They went to Reno and got married on August 5, 1968, just nine months after his wife's death.

So The Eye Book and The Foot Book came out in September and October, a month after the wedding. The production timeline for a book at the time took a year or so, which means that these, and the whole Bright and Early imprint, must have been what he was working on during Helen's final days and the period leading up to his remarriage. And it's one of the great ironies of his life, for me, that these two things were happening at the same time: creating a new type of book for the youngest, most innocent children while simultaneously breaking your most important promises and betraying who should be the most important person in your life, not just once but ongoing for years. I have no tolerance for infidelity—it's absolutely heinous and despicable. And Ted Geisel weaving that into the fabric of his life so callously that it actually caused his wife's suicide is deplorable. It changes how I see him forever. Nevertheless, he still had many years, masterpieces like the Lorax, and many triumphs for little kids still in store. It's the great paradox of his life.

Touching on this topic shouldn't be about him, though, but about the victim Helen Palmer. She was a children's author as well, but she relinquished it in order to run the details of Ted's life so that he could devote himself to writing and painting. It reminds me exactly of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner—a wife surrendering much of her career to support a boorish cheating husband. Only in their case Pollock died first, while driving drunk with his mistress while Krasner was in France, and what then happened was that she stopped painting in the house and moved into his massive studio where he'd done all the drip paintings. Her canvases grew and her career blossomed. What could Helen Palmer Geisel have done if Ted Geisel had passed away first?

Apologies to anyone reading for this long digression away from the book. I think, though, that this is a crucial moment of Seuss's life to understand if we're going to understand his work. It informs so much about him, and we can't just focus on the tremendous world-changing good he did for so many millions of children without also noting the tremendous hurt he caused to the one person who he should have defended and loved most of all. Divorce, nasty but fine. Adultery and causing someone to end their life, unacceptable. That's something we can see with our eyes! :)

My complete series of reviews of all sixty-three Dr. Seuss books in order—a list I believe only exists here—plus three of his many books published posthumously, is here. And here specifically are my reviews of his previous book, The Cat in the Hat Songbook , and his next one, The Foot Book . Or you can see my reviews starting from the beginning here!

[Hope Chasteen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary:
This is a beginning readers book. It is a very simple read for struggling or beginning readers. It tells a story about all the different objects a little boy sees. Each page has a different thing he sees. It also talks about eyes and their abilities. This is a "Dr. Seuss type" book, therefore it contains many rhyming words.
Evaluation:
There are not many words per page. The illustrations are colorful and bright. Therefore, many younger children are drawn to this book. The book appeals to beginning readers, so I would recommend having this book inside Kindergarten and maybe first grade classrooms. I rated this book with three stars, because it is short and could contain more descriptive words. When I read this to my SPED students they seemed interested in it at the beginning but then I found some students become bored. On the other hand, it could be used as a great go to book for teachers to tell their students to grab when they are finished with their assignments.
Teaching Tip:
This book contains rhyming words, therefore it could be used as a hook in a rhyming lesson in Kindergarten. The teacher could then pull out the rhyming words and let the students generate other words that rhyme. Then, the students could make their own book page to add to The Eye Book. For example, what are other things that the little boy could have seen, write the word, and draw a picture of the word.

[Emmaline MacBeath · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a Dr. Seuss book that has been written purposely for the prereader audience. The sentences are shorter and the vocabulary is slim. The illustrations target each vocabulary word to make it easier to remember the new words. This book is written for a lower age group than the Beginner Books series. The story follows many of the things we can see with our eyes including a horse, trees, ants, and even pink underpants!

The version of the book I am reviewing was not illustrated by Dr. Seuss. The illustrations are softer than Seuss' style yet contain plenty of Seuss humor and fun.

I love the ease of learning new words this book offers. It encourages a high level of success for every new reader. The fun pictures and humor make it an even better experience. The rhyming we are familiar with from Dr. Seuss is present but in a much much simpler form. I recommend this book for any prereader as well as any early reader due to its high success factor.

[Hayle Lincoln · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great children's beginner book! The word choice was selectively chosen in order to use this as a child's first reads. The illustrations in this book are very bright, and cute. I also liked what was said throughout the book, it involved how important our eyes are to us everyday. We use our eyes to see trees, people, and beautiful colors. This book really made me thankful to have my eye sight. Thank you Jesus! I would use this book in my classroom to help teach my students how to learn how to read. And I would also use this book as a lesson to my students on how to take care of their eye. What is good for them, and what is bad for them.

Dr. Seuss. (1991). The eye book. New York, NY: Random House.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

We got this book from the library - I'd never actually read it as a child.
I started to read it to my son, and he insisted he was going to read the entire book to me instead. He didn't need my help on a single word and he was SO excited to have done it all by himself. He later read the book to Daddy, and then we took in for a car ride so he could read by himself in the back seat. Great book for early readers!

The story is simple and similar to the nose book. Actually, my son even giggled at the ending because it reminded him about the Chicken a la king from the nose book (that we couldn't smell without noses). So that was fun to talk about comparisons between the two books with him.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written by Dr. Suess as Theo LeSieg. It is a book all about eye. It teaches kids that our eyes are different from other animals eyes, but we all see the same things. We see the same shapes anyway, not all animals see in the same color spectrum. Our eyes see colors like blue and red, they see far and they see near, etc. I like the illustrations in this book because they are bright colored, but the main focus is clearly the eyes, as the eyes are the biggest feature on both the boy and the rabbit throughout the book. They are the most dominant facial feature, adding to the story line.

[Edward Creter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The eyes have it in this book from the same Dr. Seuss publishing team that gave us The Foot Book. A rabbit helps a boy as well as the little reader to appreciate the eyes that see, and that see all sorts of wonderful things! Blind people may not be able to enjoy this one without feeling sad, so I understand. Seeing isn't always believing, but it's good to take care of your orbs. It takes vision to help kids learn and love life. All you have to do is look look, see see.

[Jack Kirby and the X-man · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Seuss/Theo Le Sieg rhyming for young kids at its very best.

The new illustrations by Joe Mathieu really work well.

[Luann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the super simple Dr. Seuss books that I don't believe I ever read when I was younger. The illustrations by Joe Mathieu are ultra-cute. The boy and the rabbit each have large, bright eyes which make the eyes the focus of each illustration - as it should be in a book all about eyes and the things they see.

[Kristin Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who all has eyes? What can eyes see? This is a fun book for younger ages when they are learning about their eyes. I think children will love this book. It's an easy read for younger ages and I think they would love reading it because they get to follow a bunny around and see what the bunny sees along with what the little boy sees as well. This is a good read.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book feels much different from the Dr. Seuss canon. It lacks the creativity and imagination of his other works. And there is nothing memorable or quotable from it. However, I found it a useful teaching tool for my two year old daughter to learn more about eyes. Other than a teaching tool, we probably won't revisit this book, and I doubt it will become a classic in our family.

[Kristalyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been one of our favorites for toddlers, and Preston's just discovered it! Typical Dr. Seuss rhymes and fun illustrations. (Theo LeSeig is Theodore Giesel (spelled backwards) and also Dr. Seuss.)

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Similar to The Tooth Book, The Eye Book is everything Dr. Seuss fans expect in one of his easy readers. The Eye Book encourages us to take a fresh look at the world around us and enjoy it for what it is.

[Mandy J. Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Seuss captures the hearts and imaginations of both children and adults alike in yet another fun book about body parts. This one being about the eyes features an adorable rabbit and one cute boy. You learn about all the neat things you can see with your eyes.