Green Eggs and Ham - huh???

Gracie loves to be read to and I thought it was time to start reading to her daddy's Shel Silverstein books.  As always, she paid good attention and looked at me with her big blue eyes and said, "But Why?"

Now we all know most children go through the "Why" stage, but, Grace really wants to know the why of things and expects a logical answer before she quits questioning and lays the issue at rest.  This threw a whole new light on "But Why?" when reading the mixed humor of Silverstein.

Gracie has a great sense of humor, has the ability to pretend and I was surprised her three-year-old humor didn't think the above poem was funny.  She took it literally - very literally.

She listened to the poem about twice with a very serious face and then looked at the picture for a time.  She turns her very serious face to me and asked, "But Why?"  I explained she had been jumping rope and her rope got wrapped around her."  BUT WHY?

Have you ever noticed if you try to explain a joke or humor, it just become hopeless?  We ended up with her having grave concern over how the little girl was going to get out of the tangle of rope, who would have done that to her, if she was hurt and going to cry, and if it could happen to Gracie.  Wow, a little poem was going to warp her...

We tried a few others with the same results and I realized the humor was too mature for her.  I had remembered reading "Green Eggs and Ham" and having the kids laugh and laugh.  I noticed that Ian had written a date in the front of the book "1990".  Oh, yeah, he was 13 at the time.  Guess I better give Grace another ten years before cracking open the Silverstein humor again. 

Yes, I closed the book when we read "The Worst" with it's picture of a Glurpy Slurpy Skakagrall.  Grace firmly stated I should close the book because the monster scared her.  And with that, I did, because no amount of explaining was going to make that any better.