Horton Hears A Who!

Horton Hears A Who! 

Written by Dr. Seuss

Random House Books for Young Readers, 1954, Ages 4-9

Horton Hears A Who! is about an elephant named Horton that hears a voice coming from a speck on a flower. His big ears allow him to hear the voices of the Whos, unfortunately the other animals cannot hear anything which makes him look crazy. The voice coming from the speck turns out to be the voice of the Mayor of Whoville, the town that is placed on the tiny speck. At first when Horton tells the mayor that their whole town is so small it can fit on a speck he does not believe it. However, after he pays attention to all the strange things happening around him he comes to the realization that they are in fact living on a speck and everything in Whoville begins to make more sense. Horton decides that in order to keep the city of Whoville in existence he must get the speck on the flower to a safe place, even if it puts himself in danger. The author’s purpose for “Horton Hears A Who!” is to show the audience that all people are equal whether they are big or small. 

Dr. Seuss' writing style in this book is bold and exciting. Dr. Seuss rhymes in a lot of his books and uses simple words since the audience is mostly children. He does an amazing job of keeping the readers engaged which is obvious because it seems as everyone knows who Dr. Seuss is. He is very expressive when it comes to using his words in his stories. Dr. Seuss is an overall great writer, he uses his creativity when writing and that definitely shows in his books. 

The illustrations in the book Horton Hears A Who! are pretty simple for the most part. The animals are outlined in black and are very straightforward. The setting of this book is in the jungle of Nool. The jungle is filled with plenty of wacky wildlife illustrations such as the trees and strange shaped plants. Dr. Seuss focuses a lot on the expressions of the characters in this book, for example the kangaroo always looks angry, and even though Horton is a very large elephant there are times when he looks scared and nervous. 

I would absolutely recommend this book to any child. Dr. Seuss did an outstanding job on this book as well as his whole collection of others. The particular age interests for this book are anywhere between 4-9 years old. Of course if a younger or older individual enjoys Dr. Seuss books as much as I do, the age range would be all ages. Horton Hears A Who! is a wonderful book with a story line and illustrations to keep any reader engaged. 

Reviewed by Bridget Benedict