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Dr. Seuss Storybook
The 'Dr. Seuss Story Book' combines four of his whackiest tales, McElligot's Pool, The Zax, The Lorax and Scrambled Eggs Super!, all written in hilarious rhyme and illustrated by himself.
Introducing an extraordinary range of characters, from the hairy Lorax who tries in vain to save the environment from wanton destruction, to the stubborn Zax who would rather have highways built over them than budge in their tracks, this fabulous treasury makes perfect bedtime reading for children of all ages.
Introducing an extraordinary range of characters, from the hairy Lorax who tries in vain to save the environment from wanton destruction, to the stubborn Zax who would rather have highways built over them than budge in their tracks, this fabulous treasury makes perfect bedtime reading for children of all ages.
- GenresChildrensPicture Books
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
3 people are currently reading
353 people want to read
About the author
Dr. Seuss
909 books18.4k followersAlso 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 15, 2025
McElligot's Pool
4 stars & 4/10 hearts. Perfectly fun to read aloud, quick and light and enjoyable, excellent children’s book.
The Lorax
5 stars & 5/10 hearts. This story was delightful to read aloud! I love the message of taking care of the earth. The humour was excellent, and the Lorax’s message was so good.
“Unless someone likes you cares a whole awful lot, it’s not going to get better, it’s not.”
The Zax
4 stars & 4/10 hearts. super short, but quite fun to read and full of quotable quotes!
Scrambled Eggs Super!
3 stars & 3/10 hearts. My siblings enjoyed this one when I read it to them. I, on the other hand, lost interest, and besides that, found it hard to read aloud. A good story, but not exactly my favourite Seuss book.
4 stars & 4/10 hearts. Perfectly fun to read aloud, quick and light and enjoyable, excellent children’s book.
The Lorax
5 stars & 5/10 hearts. This story was delightful to read aloud! I love the message of taking care of the earth. The humour was excellent, and the Lorax’s message was so good.
“Unless someone likes you cares a whole awful lot, it’s not going to get better, it’s not.”
The Zax
4 stars & 4/10 hearts. super short, but quite fun to read and full of quotable quotes!
Scrambled Eggs Super!
3 stars & 3/10 hearts. My siblings enjoyed this one when I read it to them. I, on the other hand, lost interest, and besides that, found it hard to read aloud. A good story, but not exactly my favourite Seuss book.
January 7, 2021
Just marvelous. My favorites are the Lorax and McElligot's Pool. Wonderful illustrations and so fun rhymes. And life lessons as well. Fun for all ages.
April 20, 2021
In what might be a profound stroke of luck I managed to find a copy of this compilation that contains two of Dr. Seuss' books which on Theodor Seuss Geisel's birthday this year were disavowed, defamed, disowned, derided, decried, denigrated, disclaimed, and otherwise disparaged by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which apparently exists to preserve the legacy of Dr. Seuss by eliminating the works of Dr. Seuss.
The books in question are McElligot’s Pool, a book about fishing that committed the allegedly intolerable crime of depicting an Eskimo, and Scrambled Eggs Super!, a book about cooking that also committed the allegedly intolerable crime of depicting Eskimos. Apparently the folks currently running Dr. Seuss Enterprises are vicious racists who hate Eskimos and believe that they don't deserve inclusion or representation, with works that exclusively portray white characters remaining as the only ones worth publishing. Racism is the new anti-racism, I guess?
As for the quality of the stories, McElligot’s Pool and Scrambled Eggs Super! are very similar, the first showing a succession of fanciful fish and the second setting out a sequence of bizarre birds. As with much of Seuss' work it's light, whimsical entertainment set to rhyme. The other two stories in this collection - which have not yet been withdrawn from publication, but I'm sure Dr. Seuss Enterprises will invent an excuse to do so eventually - are The Zax, a wonderful short story about two creatures that meet in the desert who refuse to get out of each other's way that teaches children the value of stubborn orneriness (or perhaps the opposite, but I prefer my interpretation), and the beloved environmental morality tale The Lorax, which will definitely be on the chopping block now that the American left has been completely subverted by corporate interests into exclusively obsessing over identity politics and never paying even the slightest attention to things like the environment or corporate power anymore. Good job selling out everything you ever claimed to believe in, there; I'm sure that ensuring that nobody ever sees an Eskimo is somehow a much higher priority than keeping people from getting screwed over by Wall Street, anyway.
At any rate, all of the stories are lovely, as is always the case with Dr. Seuss, so this is an excellent addition to any library even if you're not the type to obsessively collect banned and suppressed books like myself. While The Lorax is a fairly common find in solo form, The Zax makes for a good addition since it's so short that it's only found in these sorts of compilations; however, the real allure of this package is the pair of books withdrawn from publication that have suddenly skyrocketed in price, turning this volume into a convenient way to get both at once and at a price that might be much lower than the individual volumes.
The books in question are McElligot’s Pool, a book about fishing that committed the allegedly intolerable crime of depicting an Eskimo, and Scrambled Eggs Super!, a book about cooking that also committed the allegedly intolerable crime of depicting Eskimos. Apparently the folks currently running Dr. Seuss Enterprises are vicious racists who hate Eskimos and believe that they don't deserve inclusion or representation, with works that exclusively portray white characters remaining as the only ones worth publishing. Racism is the new anti-racism, I guess?
As for the quality of the stories, McElligot’s Pool and Scrambled Eggs Super! are very similar, the first showing a succession of fanciful fish and the second setting out a sequence of bizarre birds. As with much of Seuss' work it's light, whimsical entertainment set to rhyme. The other two stories in this collection - which have not yet been withdrawn from publication, but I'm sure Dr. Seuss Enterprises will invent an excuse to do so eventually - are The Zax, a wonderful short story about two creatures that meet in the desert who refuse to get out of each other's way that teaches children the value of stubborn orneriness (or perhaps the opposite, but I prefer my interpretation), and the beloved environmental morality tale The Lorax, which will definitely be on the chopping block now that the American left has been completely subverted by corporate interests into exclusively obsessing over identity politics and never paying even the slightest attention to things like the environment or corporate power anymore. Good job selling out everything you ever claimed to believe in, there; I'm sure that ensuring that nobody ever sees an Eskimo is somehow a much higher priority than keeping people from getting screwed over by Wall Street, anyway.
At any rate, all of the stories are lovely, as is always the case with Dr. Seuss, so this is an excellent addition to any library even if you're not the type to obsessively collect banned and suppressed books like myself. While The Lorax is a fairly common find in solo form, The Zax makes for a good addition since it's so short that it's only found in these sorts of compilations; however, the real allure of this package is the pair of books withdrawn from publication that have suddenly skyrocketed in price, turning this volume into a convenient way to get both at once and at a price that might be much lower than the individual volumes.
December 26, 2025
There is very definitely only one Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Nobody else writes such zany verse and creates such wacky characters as Dr. Seuss. And this storybook that contains 'McElligot's Pool' 'The Zax', 'The Lorax' and 'Scrambled Eggs - Super!' is full of such verse and characters.
'McElligot's Pool' is a pool where no fish are caught only junk thrown in by people and Dr. Seuss expresses it thus: 'If you sat fifty years/With your worms and your wishes,/You'd grow a long beard/Long before you'd catch fishes!' The story then follows the path of the river that feeds the pool and suggests some of the more weird sea creatures that just might inhabit it such as a dog fish, a sea horse, a fish 'who is partly a cow', an Eskimo fish, a rough-neck old Lobster, or even 'some sort of a kind of A THIN-A-MA-JIGGER!'. And the chances of catching some of those encourage the fisherman and boy to thin, 'And that's why I think/That I'm not such a fool/When I sit here and fish/in McElligot's Pool!'
In 'The Zax' there are North-Going Zaxs and South-Going Zaxs and they clash over the path they are to take across the desert and argued so long that before they got going 'the world grew' and in a couple of years a new highway was built right over the two stubborn Zaxs who were left 'un-budged in their tracks'!
'The Lorax' lives in The Street of Lifted Lorax in a strange looking house among the Truffula Trees,
and he meets strange looking man who causes him problems as trees keep getting cut down. Also living there are the Thneeds, 'a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need' but they are forced away because as the Lorax declares 'thanks to your hacking my trees to the ground, there's not enough Truffula Fruit to go round'. It is a problem the Lorax tries to solve.
'Scrambled Eggs - Super!' features the hero Peter T. Hooper, who declares that as a cook he is 'the best that there is'. And Peter gathers some eggs for his cooking and on his way back he encounters the Ruffle-Necked Sala-ma-goose, a Tizzle-Topped Grouse and he picks up some different eggs to scramble when he gets home. Later he discovers a Long-Legger Kwong, a Grice at the North Pole and a Pelf, who 'lays eggs that are three times as big as herself'. As I am sure you can imagine, therefore, his scrambling of eggs later takes on a whole different concept!
As always Dr. Seuss' stories are quite zany and such fun ... especially when read aloud!
'McElligot's Pool' is a pool where no fish are caught only junk thrown in by people and Dr. Seuss expresses it thus: 'If you sat fifty years/With your worms and your wishes,/You'd grow a long beard/Long before you'd catch fishes!' The story then follows the path of the river that feeds the pool and suggests some of the more weird sea creatures that just might inhabit it such as a dog fish, a sea horse, a fish 'who is partly a cow', an Eskimo fish, a rough-neck old Lobster, or even 'some sort of a kind of A THIN-A-MA-JIGGER!'. And the chances of catching some of those encourage the fisherman and boy to thin, 'And that's why I think/That I'm not such a fool/When I sit here and fish/in McElligot's Pool!'
In 'The Zax' there are North-Going Zaxs and South-Going Zaxs and they clash over the path they are to take across the desert and argued so long that before they got going 'the world grew' and in a couple of years a new highway was built right over the two stubborn Zaxs who were left 'un-budged in their tracks'!
'The Lorax' lives in The Street of Lifted Lorax in a strange looking house among the Truffula Trees,
and he meets strange looking man who causes him problems as trees keep getting cut down. Also living there are the Thneeds, 'a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need' but they are forced away because as the Lorax declares 'thanks to your hacking my trees to the ground, there's not enough Truffula Fruit to go round'. It is a problem the Lorax tries to solve.
'Scrambled Eggs - Super!' features the hero Peter T. Hooper, who declares that as a cook he is 'the best that there is'. And Peter gathers some eggs for his cooking and on his way back he encounters the Ruffle-Necked Sala-ma-goose, a Tizzle-Topped Grouse and he picks up some different eggs to scramble when he gets home. Later he discovers a Long-Legger Kwong, a Grice at the North Pole and a Pelf, who 'lays eggs that are three times as big as herself'. As I am sure you can imagine, therefore, his scrambling of eggs later takes on a whole different concept!
As always Dr. Seuss' stories are quite zany and such fun ... especially when read aloud!
May 28, 2020
(1997 edition) A compilation of 4 poem-stories, all from 1971 or earlier. The headline act here is the Lorax, which is quite a brilliant environmental fable. Everyone should read it, especially children. It's even more relevant today than it was in 1971. McElligot's Pool was my 2nd favourite here, and I'm sure would make an enjoyable read for most children. The Zax was, I suppose, a fable about stubbornness, but it's so slight, it was instantly forgettable. The last, longest story here is Scrambled Eggs Super, which goes on and on forever, in an annoying Jabberwocky kind of way. Although Dr Seuss writes pretty well, it's the illustrations that really bring his books to life. 5/5 for the Lorax, but rather less for the others, so 4/5 on average.
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April 2, 2022💫🎩🔝📚 Dr. Seuss Storybook by Dr. Seuss
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January 22, 2023
We love these stories. We've read them over and over.
September 13, 2014
10/10
The master of rhythm and rhyme. Dr Seuss explores all manner of themes in such an innovative manner. These texts are wonderfully didactic for children along with being tremendously entertaining.
Superb art too. Timeless.
The master of rhythm and rhyme. Dr Seuss explores all manner of themes in such an innovative manner. These texts are wonderfully didactic for children along with being tremendously entertaining.
Superb art too. Timeless.
March 28, 2015
Fabulous
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September 24, 2014#36 (with others) on "Reddit's Favorite Books" list.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews