• Title: Green Eggs and Ham
• Author and Illustrator: Dr. Seuss
• Published: 1960
• Main Characters: ‘Sam I am’, unnamed character (also the first person narrator).

Short Synopsis of the Story: This is a story told completely in repetitive rhyming verse in the nonsensical style typical of Dr Seuss’s storytelling. In the story, the narrator is encouraged by ‘Sam I Am’ in multitudinous ways to partake of a meal of green eggs and ham.

The narrator declines the offer quite resolutely stating:

“I do not like them,

Sam-I-am.

I do not like

green eggs and ham.”

To further tempt the narrator, Sam-I-am offers the narrator a choice of locations for eating the green eggs and ham. The locations range from in a house with a mouse, to in a box with a fox, to in a car or a tree or even a train. In all the instances the narrator declines the offer of green eggs and ham to be eaten in those locations.

But Sam-I-am persists. Perhaps the narrator would eat green eggs and ham in the dark, or in the rain, or perhaps in the company of a goat or on a boat?

Alas, in all the offered situations, the meal of green eggs and ham is again declined.

To this Sam-I-am replies:

“You do not like them.

So you say.

Try them! Try them!

And you may.

Try them and you may, I say”

To this entreaty what can the narrator do, but comply?

And to his great satisfaction finds … that he does indeed like green eggs and ham!

Notes: The tale is told in repetitive rhyming verse and is remarkably composed of a mere fifty word vocabulary. That Dr. Seuss can construct an enjoyable story with such an economy of words is worthy of high praise. The limited vocabulary and the repetition of words makes this an ideal book to encourage children to read by themselves. It is quite enjoyable to read and follow the pictures and verse and the rhyme is quite addictive.

What is the moral of the story you ask?

Perhaps, it is written to encourage people to try something out before they completely say no to it.

But green eggs and ham? Now what is that?

I really haven’t got a clue 🙂