Monday, March 17, 2008

Horton Hears a Who!

Yesterday, we took the kids to the movies. It's been so long since we last saw a movie, can't remember the last one. Probably, the first one this year. Well, it was either the Spiderwick Chronicles or Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who! Since Nayli is so into Dr. Seuss's books right now we decided on this one. She has never read this book before, it seems that she has never come across this particular book during her weekly library visits. Luckily, on Saturday after her swimming lessons, and the normal rush to the library to exchange this week's books, she managed to find it. So great, we all took turns reading the book on Sunday morning before leaving for the movies in the afternoon. Except for Zarif, we all went to the movies with the storyline in mind. In case you are wondering, we didn't read out loud to Zarif, cause it was quite a long story and in rather small prints, will take a few days if it were to be read out loud, perhaps we could read a few pages per night this week. If he wants to revisit the story.

Anyhow, the movie was quite good actually, they stuck to the storyline but probably added a few bits here and there to make it a full length movie. Very enjoyable.
Below is the excerpt about the book from Wikipedia:
Horton Hears a Who! is a 1954 book by Dr. Seuss. It is the second Seuss book to feature Horton the Elephant, the first being Horton Hatches the Egg.


Plot
The book tells the story of Horton the Elephant who, on the fifteenth of May in the Jungle of Nool, hears a small speck of dust talking to him. It turns out the speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called "Who-ville", inhabited by microscopic-sized inhabitants known as Whos.
The Whos ask Horton (who, though he cannot see them, is able to hear them quite well) to protect them from harm, to which Horton happily obliges, proclaiming throughout the book that "a person's a person, no matter how small". In doing so he is ridiculed and forced into a cage by the other animals in the jungle for believing in something that they are unable to see or hear. His chief tormentors are Vlad Vladikoff, the Wickersham Brothers and the Sour Kangaroo, and the small kangaroo in her pouch. Horton tells the Whos that they needed to make themselves heard to the other animals, lest they end up as part of "beezlenut stew", which they finally accomplish. The Whos finally make themselves heard by ensuring that all members of their society play their part. In the end it is the smallest Who of all, Jo-Jo, who provides the last volume lift to be heard, thus reinforcing the moral of "a person's a person no matter how small".
Now convinced of the Whos' existence, Horton's neighbors vow to help him protect the tiny community.
The book was published in
August 1954,

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hey.. we brought the kids to watch horton that very same day too at Ampang Galaxy (wanted to avoid the KLCC crowd). We watched the 2.15pm show..