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
I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew
by
Dr. Seuss
fantasy, picture book in Hardcover edition that was published by HarperCollins on May 4, 2004 and has 59 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!, Daisy-Head Mayzie, 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, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
A warning tale about life in picture book form. It’s almost Dorothy-like in its ending…
My Take
Watch where you’re walkin’!
It’s a hazardous journey through life with problems popping and flitting, darting and biting, raining and flooding — without toothpaste or soap! And, poor Cat. His journey is so much longer than he expected…and isn’t that the way for all of us.
It’s a series of troubles that gets deeper and deeper, from a camel needing a ride, to the nastier part of that particular lesson and right down deeper into the tunnel under Pamplemoose.
I do enjoy the colors Seuss uses in his books. They’re rarely primary colors, but more nuanced and normally consistently used throughout the story. In I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, Suess was totally inconsistent in his colors. Some were deep and grayed while others were bright and cheery. It could be a reflection of Cat’s experiences as he travels.
If nothing else, I always enjoy the scenes and characters that Seuss creates.
I certainly did like the button-like flowers outside that trap door. That field of flowers almost paled, though, when the city of Solla Sollew appeared with its towers and arches and frivolity too.
I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew is a microcosm of life, as Cat discovers there are hidden perils everywhere and that running away from your problems doesn’t necessarily get you in the clear.
The Story
Rocks, the evil-minded, green-headed Quilligan Quail, a Skirtz, and a Skrink pop up from all directions, leaving Cat thinking this chap in his One-Wheeler Wubble has the answers to his troubles.
It’s a hard lesson to learn, and not so hard to go back.
The Characters
Cat is from the Valley of Vung.
Dr. Sam Snell knows all about camels.
Butch Meyers is the usual bus driver. Horace P. Sweet is the bus line president.
General Genghis Khan Schmitz inducts Cat into his army to battle the Perilous Poozer of Pompelmoose Pass.
The naughty Key-Slapping Slippard can’t be killed, as the Doorman moans.
The Midwinter Jicker is a nasty rainy sort of storm.
The Cover and Title
The cover has a white background and is framed by a Seussian blob of deep pink that starts as a lumpy hillside on the left tumbling down to the bottom of the cover only to rise up as a long swaying trunk with a high umbrella-like canopy at the very top. Calmly stepping from hillock to hillock is a bright yellow camel hitched to a blue One-Wheeler Wubble to which a rusty looking Cat is clinging.
The title sums up that I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew.
