Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!

by Dr. Seuss

Children's book review by Steve Barancik

Ages 4-8

A book about imagination and thinking

What is a single unit of imagination? Well, according to Dr. Seuss, it's a think.

Sticklers might argue that it's a thought, but hey, this is a Beginner Book and it's a lot easier to sound out Think than Thought. Besides, Think rhymes with Rink-Rinker-Fink and How much water can fifty-five elephants drink?

"Thought" doesn't. Besides, having already turned a verb into a noun the previous year in Great Day for Up, Seuss was in a rhythm!

This book is often described as an ode to the wonders of imagination and keeping it alive. Oh, the Thinks You Can Think is certainly that, but I would maintain that the message is still more expansive, that it urges readers simply to keep using their noggins.

And why is it
so many things
go to the Right?
You can think about THAT
until Saturday night.

Seuss's fantastic illustrations have never seemed more on point than here, when he's talking about the landscape of the mind. Rather than serving merely as settings, the pictures are examples of what things can look like when you simply close your eyes and bother to imagine.

In an age when thinking seems to have gone out of style (replaced by passive entertainment and simply echoing what others think), Oh, the Thinks You Can Think can urge your children onto a more thoughtful and imaginative path.

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