Book Club Edition
Sam-I-am's smiling enthusiasm for the seemingly unappetizingly tinted green eggs and ham is undaunted, despite repeated disdain shown by an unnamed, dour disparager. Sam will not give up, though, and offers the dish over and over, proposing that it be sampled under sometimes whacky circumstances and in odd locales (with a goat, on a boat, in the rain, on a train, in a box, with a fox, etc.). In the end Sam does get the grumpy disparager to take a taste—if only to get Sam off his back. The disparager's demeanor quickly changes to all smiles when he discovers to his surprise that disdained green eggs and ham are, in fact, quite tasty. Sam-I-am, yet another delightfully plucky Seuss protagonist, allows both adults and humans to look—with the objectivity humor so adeptly affords—at our all-too-human tendency towards knee-jerk negativity in response to anything that is new or different.
Fun Fact:
This classic has become so ingrained into our culture that one U.S. District Court judge actually parodied it in a 2007 ruling. You can read the back-story here and the actual wording of his "Seussian" decision here.
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