Amazon.com Review: A thoroughly Seussian tweak of the alphabet-book tradition, On Beyond Zebra is about all the letters that most people ignore--the ones that come after Z. Our hero (instantly recognizable to most Seuss fans as the boy who captured Thing One and Thing Two in The Cat in the Hat) takes his young friend, Conrad Cornelius O'Donald O'Dell, on a guided tour of all the weird creatures that begin with letters such as Yuzz, Wumbus, and Glikk. "And Nuh is the letter I use to spell Nutches, Who live in small caves, known as Nitches, for hutches." The message is pretty simple: the alphabet pins down boring old "reality," but if you explore further afield there are more interesting worlds to discover. "So, on beyond Z! It's high time you were shown, / That you really don't know all there is to be known." Explorers in need of guidance will even find a table of useful new letters (a beyondabet? a WumbaGlikk?) in the back. (Ages 4 to 8) --Richard Farr
Altered perspectives for life This book introduced "paradigm shifting" into my intellectual vocabulary before I even knew what such a thing was.
Many, many, many years ago (Nixon was President, I think) I read this and was changed. I can remember the the images, the textures, the smells (Ah! The ditto machine and its purple perfume!) and all my surroundings. I was sitting in the elementary school library, facing northwest toward the door. Lured by the title and the premise, I had taken the volume to my assigned seat ("Library" was a class back then, as it should have been) and quickly devoured it.
The concept - that our 26-letter alphabet was an arbitrary collection and not a universal constant on a par with gravity - had never entered my cartoon-addled mind. It sparked an awareness of similar cultural and philosophical constrictions that I have expanded and retained to this day.
Hats off to the Dr.!
Left quite an impression... Loved this book as a child. Fast-forward thirty-some years, I am a computational linguist with a fascination for exotic writing systems. Coincidence? In think not.
Best of Seuss A fun book for kids, with some deeper insight as well.
"When you go beyond Zebra, Who knows...? There's no telling What wonderful things You might find yourself spelling!"
A frequently overlooked Seuss gem ! This was my favorite book as a kid & still is. I now have ownership of our family's 'ancient' copy (copyright date 1955, Mom's written inscription: Christmas 1962 for my oldest brother who was age 6). I recently read it to my 6 year old son and he also was taken with this book. I am getting a new copy for him for Christmas as the original is pretty fragile now. This book belongs in every family's collection along with The Lorax, The Sneeches, Bartholomew Cubbins, Horton and the rest of the classic/original Seuss stories.
Awesome...its the Dr. Actually got this for my new tat, but I love this art
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
