I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
Daisy-Head Mayzie
by
Dr. Seuss
fantasy, picture book in Paperback edition that was published by Random House for Young Readers on January 11, 1995 and has 56 pages.
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Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Sneetches and Other Stories, Horton Hatches the Egg & Horton Hears a Who!, Green Eggs and Ham, The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories, The Lorax, Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!, Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, The King's Stilts, Scrambled Eggs Super!, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories, You're Only Old Once!, My Many Colored Days, McElligot's Pool, If I Ran the Circus, Sleep Book, I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! and Other Stories, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
A standalone story about appearances, celebrity, and they love me, they love me not…
My Take
As I started reading, I suddenly thought of parental admonitions about washing behind your ears lest potatoes start to grow, lol. Hmmm, makes me wonder if Mayzie has been washing her hair!
Seuss has done a beautiful job of rhyming the story and the children’s dialogue. It makes you want to sing along as you read. The illustrations are lively in softly bright colors.
I like the principal’s office. All those lovely books and so very Seussian in their positions, lol. A nice bit of science in terms of where daisies grow.
What’s not nice is the adults’ reactions. The principal treats her like a diseased thing that has to be isolated. The doctor sees her in terms of his future. The mayor jumps on his soapbox and has hysterics about daisies taking over. And somehow, the publicity agent entices Mayzie into signing.
I started this, thinking it would be about the kids teasing Mayzie unmercifully, but it turns out to have two different “conflicts”. The first is the adults’ reactions to Mayzie’s startling appearance, on which Seuss spends three-fourths of the story. The next four pages are about ol’ Finagle getting a jumpstart on today’s culture of celebretizing anything different and was such a twist on where Seuss had been heading; it’s as if Seuss couldn’t decide which way to swing and threw in a sudden thought without bothering to hook it up. I wish that Seuss had spent more time on Mayzie becoming unhappy with being a celebrity. Instead he simply jumps from all those piles of tens to the last ten pages of Mayzie fleeing and discovering what is truly important.
The unexpected ending is cute. Acceptance is a wonderful thing.
The Story
When a daisy suddenly sprouts from the top of Mayzie McGrew’s head, she is faced with the fear and greed of adults, her parents’ dismay, and a publicity agent’s greed.
And poor Mayzie learns that love is more important than fame and fortune.
The Characters
Mayzie McGrew is a young student. Mrs. McGrew appears to be a painter or welder. Mr. McGrew works in a shoe store.
Fellow students include Herman “Butch” Stroodel and Einstein Van Tass.
Miss Sneetcher is the teacher. Mr. Gregory Grumm is the principal. Dr. Eisenbart is a medical doctor while his brother is a vet. Finch is a florist. Officer Thatcher loses his hat. Finagle is a publicity agent — oh shades, of our culture today!
While the Cat-in-the-Hat comes to the rescue.
The Cover and Title
The cover has a colonial blue sky of a background with cartoon clouds at the bottom as the Cat-in-the-Hat floats through the sky with the help of his orange umbrella and Daisy-Head Mayzie hugged to his side.
The title is all about Diasy-Head Mayzie and the lessons she learns.
