Things We Can Learn From Children's Books

[Resha Caner]

"A person's a person no matter how small."
- Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!

 

[Ana the Ist]

"A person's a person no matter how small."
- Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!

Sure, but what's a person? Does that imply consciousness? Personhood? Ensoulment?

 

[Resha Caner]

Sure, but what's a person? Does that imply consciousness? Personhood? Ensoulment?

”Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”
- A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh







(Hint: I'm not supposed to tell you the rules of the game. You're just supposed to figure them out.)

 

[Received]

Sure, but what's a person? Does that imply consciousness? Personhood? Ensoulment?

Giggling at the images of you when you were four and were read Dr. Seuss books.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Giggling at the images of you when you were four and were read Dr. Seuss books.

My dad was taking a nap on the couch and I jumped on him. That was the end of the Dr for me...

 

[Chesterton]

The Ethics of Elfland

"My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally learnt it from a nurse; that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition. The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong."

 

[bhsmte]

"A person's a person no matter how small."
- Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!

Small in what way?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

"A person's a person no matter how small."
- Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!

Ok.

"And in the penguin house there are penguin families."

- Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, And Tango Makes Three

 

[Chesterton]

Horton Hears a Who!

But did he even hear? Auditory perception raises a host of challenging philosophical questions. What do we hear? What are the objects of hearing? What is the content and phenomenology of audition? Is hearing spatial? How does audition differ from vision and other sense modalities? How does the perception of sounds differ from that of colors and ordinary objects? What did McLuhan say about it?

I find Seuss woefully lacking in that he failed to even address such basic issues. The poor children who read him learn nothing actually important.

 

[TillICollapse]

This isn't from a children's book, but it's one of my favorite all times jokes, it was told to me in elementary school by a classmate who had just moved from China and was still learning English:

"Ask me if I'm a tree."

"Are you a tree ?"

"No."

 

[Ada Lovelace]

"People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto

 

[Saricharity]

"It's awfully hard to be brave when you're such a small animal."

quote by piglet in Winnie the Pooh

 

[Ada Lovelace]

 

[Davian]

 

[Deidre32]

I'd say children's books are simple to understand, and aren't designed with a motive or underlying agenda. I wish more adults were this way.

 

[Ana the Ist]

"His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink."

-Lord of the Flies

 

[Chesterton]

“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,” whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but . . . he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. . . .
“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”
“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!”
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.

The Wind in the Willows
7. "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn"
Kenneth Grahame

 

[Saricharity]

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”


― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

 

[BL2KTN]

"Everybody poops."

-- Everybody Poops

 

[Ada Lovelace]

“Words can be worrisome, people complex, motives and manners unclear. Grant her the wisdom to choose her path right, free from unkindness and fear.”
— Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman