I opened this one January 4th 2020 but upon reading the fish names in the dedication I stopped; I sensed I was about to go looking for a lot of fish names, a task I was not eager to do.
Upon Realizing I finished nothing in February I went back to it like 43 minutes before February was fully out, and I was right, I did have to look up a few fish names.

It was an education on Fish, but given that the story happened to have me re-encounter Marco from my first Dr Seuss, and that character's predilection to imagine and come up with things, it was really hard to distinguish what fish names were actually real, and what fish names or descriptions were strictly Marco related.
At all ends, I enjoyed meeting Marco again, however he did not impress me as he did first time I met him.

And the parable and its message are quite confusing, here. I will need to think on it some more.
I suppose that makes sense, from 1937 to 1947 is a full decade, during which a life gets more complicated and becomes more vague.

It's a great struggle to tell if it is time being wasted on a fool's errand, or if it's patience and faith that we truly need.

Wow, hmmm ...

4 stars & 4/10 hearts. Perfectly fun to read aloud, quick and light and enjoyable, excellent children’s book.

About the text.

So often in literary worlds and movieland, we see the use of story frames that provide abrupt and effective break odds into new artful realities. While story frames are effective, what if we were to use or enjoy the subjunctive to speak of possibilities as possibilities rather than alternative realities.

Here in McElligot's Pool, we find a farmer who says that the young fisherman will not catch fish in a small pool of water. In return, the young man speaks of possibilities. In this young person's imagination, the pool might yield many types of fish. Only when he follows his own imagination--we along with him--we discover a world of possibilities, a world teeming with possibilities. What a delightful book for children and those who read with them.

About the Illustrations.

I am reading the children books of Dr Seuss in order of publication. I have read most, if not all of them. Here is the first of the series that uses full color pictures. Not every page is filled with color. There are pages where I want more color. Yet the color used is delightful, composed of watercolors rather than the previously used art sticks. The watercolor allows for details and graduations not so easily allowed by art sticks used from a limited palette.

Overall recommended for all lovers of Dr Seuss and for all those who delight in language style.

He is and will always be one of my favorite authors.

Fun to see Marco again (featured also in And to Think that I Saw it On Mulberry Street)...with his imagination still running wild. I am fairly certain I have never read this Dr. Seuss title before. As an adult, I can't decide whether I want to applaud Marco's optimistic outlook about fishing in this pool...a fish MIGHT come...or whether I want to scold him for wasting his time on something which is so unlikely to yield results. But ultimately, I think his fishing is less about yielding results and more about having a good time and using his great, unending imagination which is something I can get behind. :). My kids loved it.

Interesting illustrations and Dr. Seuss' classic narration make this a fun book for all ages. Our girls especially enjoyed the silly fish that are mentioned in this book. We really enjoyed reading this book together.

This book was featured as one of the selections for the March 2015 Dr. Seuss reads for the Picture-Book Club in the Children's Books Group here at Goodreads.

For the most part, I really enjoy reading Dr. Seuss books. I cannot remember if I ever read this title, but I selected it to ready because it is being questioned on not being Politically Correct and Racist I believe.
I did not see any issues with this book. I believe it was written in 1947 and talks about a boy trying to fish in a small fishing hole, which is littered with junk (Sadly, this topic is still and even worse epidemic today: littering!!!) It talks about being patient and waiting to catch a fish and with the boy’s imagination, he thinks up all different kind of fish he possibly could catch. “Oh, the sea is so full of fish, if a fellow is patient, he might get his wish!” HHHHMMMM… I like this thought. The world is full of all kinds of fish and well…some days I am more patient than other, but if I persist and with some imagination thrown in …hhhhmmm I might catch a dream. Keep soaring!!!

In this colorful picture book, a boy named Marco goes fishing in a small pond called McElligot's Pool. As he sits waiting for a bite, a farmer calls him a fool and says "You'll never catch fish in McElligot's Pool!" Marco, however, refuses to be discouraged and spends the rest of the story describing all the fish that could be coming to McElligot's Pool from the ocean. The story ends with Marco still fishing and the farmer scratching his beard and looking confused. The use of color and illustrations blur the line between fantasy and reality during Marco's story, creating one of the most interesting aspects of the book. The text is made up of catchy rhymes and intriguing fish descriptions. The pictures complement the text and make the fish descriptions seem real. Interestingly, Seuss illustrates every other page in black and white. At the beginning of the story when Marco sits by the pond, the black and white emphasizes the concrete reality of the Marco talking to the farmer. After page one, every other page is in color. The color magnifies Marco's fantasy about all of the fish, making them seem beautiful and real. At the same time, the black and white pages make Marco's fish descriptions seem realistic. Seuss's use of the black-and-white pictures during Marco's whimsical descriptions in the text could be his way of toning down the fantasy and bringing it into the context of every day life. The use of color to blend reality and fantasy also emphasizes optimism in the story. The farmer was probably right in telling Marco that he will "never catch fish in McElligot's Pool." With the clever use of color and illustrations, however, Dr. Seuss undermines the fisherman's certainty and makesMarco's claim that there might be fish in McElligot's Pool believable. McElligot's Pool sends the message that life is not always as it seems, that it is not as simple as b

4.5/5. I really liked this book, I thought it was really good in showing kids that you should never give in, or give up because someone else tells you you're finished before you even start.

While I enjoyed the rhyming, I could not suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy this book. The fact that he was teaching kids that fish would migrate from a salt water environment to a freshwater pond, through underground brooks, completely lost me. The salinity issues alone... Overall not one of my favorites from Teddy G.

A neat way to deliver the message of being patient and waiting to see what happens. The use of the word Eskimo is problematic, and should be addressed with care if reading to a small child.

Dr. Seuss has been in the spotlight lately for all the wrong reasons, and suddenly reading his books has become problematic. Was he a terrible person? No, but he was a person of his time, and some of his artistic choices do not sit comfortably with our time. His wartime anti-Japanese cartoons are certainly unpleasant to see now, but do they erase his other work? Undeniably, Seuss set a hard-to-beat standard for children’s picturebooks. His rhymes, stories, and drawings fill many classics of the genre. The question of how much we should let what we know about an artist affect our appreciation of that artist’s work is worth asking and considering. In the case of Seuss, I will continue to value his contribution to children’s literature, even while acknowledging the unpleasant aspects of his long career.

McElligot’s Pool isn’t in the same league as The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, or The Lorax, but even on a so-so-day, Seuss was a master of his art. The book begins, as many of his do, with a simple theme—in this case: What might be down in that pool? From there, imagination takes over and the reader is plunged into a world of silly words, wild creatures, and crazy artwork.