*****SPOILERS*****
I think what Seuss misses here is that the intended moral, about sticking up for people who can't defend themselves, is rendered moot about halfway through in the 'clover patch 100 miles wide' episode. At this point, if he could have set aside the cause he had invested himself in for a moment, Horton would have appreciated that the Whos were in the best possible situation now for them, completely hidden and safe. But his paternalistic impulse to save the weak pushes him on to uncover their hiding-spot and as a consequence brings them to the brink of disaster, saved only by a contrived and wildly unrealistic moral awakening among the villains of the tale. Otherwise, great pictures and rhymes.

An excellent Dr. Seuss that I just read to my granddaughter. I always liked this one as a child.

“A person's a person, no matter how small.”

That faithful elephant Horton returns in this follow-up to his initial adventure, chronicled in n  Horton Hatches the Eggn, this time finding himself the guardian of an entire microscopic city. Hearing a voice coming from a speck of dust floating by him one day at the watering hole, kindhearted Horton realizes that there are tiny people on the speck - people so tiny they can't be seen. Guiding the speck to rest on a flower, Horton decides he will protect these miniature Whos - as the people are called - and the flower which has become their refuge. Unfortunately for him, the rest of the residents of the Jungle of Nool think he's gone mad, talking to people who aren't there, and, led by an officious kangaroo, decide that something must be done to put a stop to Horton's unconventional behavior...

First published in 1954, fourteen years after n  Horton Hatches the Eggn, and the same year as n  Scrambled Eggs Super!n, Horton Hears a Who! was Dr. Seuss' tenth picture-book, and is a treasured memento of my reading childhood. Much like its companion, this was a bedtime favorite when I was a girl, and I must have listened to and then read it thousands of times. Just as the earlier book had its iconic Hortonian phrase - "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, an elephant's faithful, 100%" - so too did this second story, with its refrain that "I’ll just have to save him. Because, after all, A person's a person, no matter how small", and I could have recited either, at the drop of a hat. Despite its status as a girlhood favorite, I hadn't picked up the book in many years, until prompted by my recently begun Dr. Seuss retrospective, in which I plan to read all forty-four of his classic picture-books, in chronological publication order. I began this project as an act of personal protest against the suppression of six of the author/artist's titles - n  And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Streetn, n  McElligot's Pooln, n  If I Ran the Zoon, n  Scrambled Eggs Super!n, n  On Beyond Zebra!n and n  The Cat's Quizzern - by Dr. Seuss Enterprises. See my review of n  And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Streetn, to be found HERE, for a fuller exploration of my thoughts on that matter.

Leaving that aside, I enjoyed this reread, but perhaps not as much as I expected to do, nor as much as I enjoyed my reread of n  Horton Hatches the Eggn. It is still an excellent book, featuring a thought-provoking story, a fun rhyming text, and Dr. Seuss' own trademark illustrations, done this time in black line drawings, with blue and red color accents. All that said, I noticed that the rhyme scheme wasn't quite as accomplished as in some of Seuss' other titles, stumbling in a few places. I also found the story somewhat more off-putting than I recall it being, on an emotional level, with all of the other animals hunting Horton down. The central message, on the other hand, that people deserve to live in peace, no matter how small their society (or their persons!), no matter how much less powerful they are, compared to others, is still as relevant today as it ever was. So too is Horton's declaration that, as someone larger and stronger, it is up to him to protect these smaller, more vulnerable beings, even in the face of opposition from others in his own society. This vision of the just use of power, and of strength, is one many readers will instinctively find themselves agreeing to, I would imagine. We're hard wired, as mammals, to protect our young, and many of us recoil from the idea of the weak being bullied or exploited by the strong. The book is dedicated to Mitsugi Nakamura, a Japanese professor with whom Dr. Seuss became friends, after World War II, and many read it as an oblique apology for its creator's racist anti-Japanese cartoons, during that conflict, or as an exploration of the relationship between the USA and Japan, in the post-war period, when the latter was in desperate need of aid and protection.

It's interesting to note that although Horton Hears a Who! was not on the list of six books selected for suppression by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, it has received similar criticism as those titles did, being described in one academic paper ("The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss's Children's Books”) as reinforcing themes of "White supremacy, Orientalism, and White saviorism." Emboldened by their success with the titles mentioned above, one wonders whether these cultural critics and self-styled reformers of public morality will next come for titles like this? A sobering thought, and a development that Seuss seems to have instinctively anticipated in his story, in which Horton's sincere desire to help draws ridicule and persecution from the big kangaroo, who eventually organizes a mob to oppose him. It seems highly likely that these cultural vandals will continue to attempt to disappear works of literature and art, so it's really no wonder that Seuss titles have been dominating the bestseller lists, of late, as people scramble to buy the books while they can. Truly, a sorry debacle.

'On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool,/In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool ...' Horton the elephant hears a noise from a passing speck of dust. He doesn't believe his ears (and they are big!) but eventually he is persuaded that there is somebody there.

He, therefore, grabs the speck of dust and places it on a clover. He converses with whoever is there and discovers it is a Who, the Mayor indeed, from Who-ville, a city on the speck of dust!

A listening kangaroo and her young can't believe Horton is talking to a clover and then the Wickersham brothers, three monkeys, come along and snatch Horton's clover. They give it to an eagle, Vlad Vlad-i-koff, who flies off with it and drops it in a field of clovers.

Horton's persistence eventually pays off after he has searched three million clovers and he asks the Whos to make plenty of noise to persuade the Wickersham and their extended family, who had joined them, that there is someone on the clover.

After plenty of trial and tribulation, and noise created in a variety of ways, voices are eventually heard and Horton has the monkeys, the kangaroos and everyone else prepared to protect the Whos in their massive city for evermore.

As the blurb says, it is a Dr. Seuss fable for the slightly more able and that includes children from four to eight ... and some adults!

Fue hermoso. Nunca había leído a Dr. Seuss, era de mis eternos pendientes, pero me animé con este cuya película me fascina (y, por cierto, es una muy buena adaptación).

Horton estaba tranquilamente bañándose cuando escucha una voz, entonces, descubre que viene de una pequeña partícula. Cuando la señora Canguro lo ve hablando con quien ella supone era su imaginación se enoja con él y decide castigarlo. Horton intenta salvar a sus amigos los Whos, pero todos en la jungla de Nool quieren destruir esa partícula con la que el elefante está tan emocionado.

Es tan hermoso como la película. Horton decidido a cuidar de los Whos porque una persona es una persona sin importar su tamaño, al mismo tiempo que vemos la intolerancia de la señora Canguro y todos los que la siguen. Su completa incapacidad para aceptar que la felicidad de alguien puede ser algo por completo diferente y fuera de su propio entendimiento. Más allá de si existía esa gente pequeña, su intolerancia hacia la imaginación es terrible. Además, el mensaje final de que incluso la más pequeña persona puede hacer el cambio necesario es muy bello.

Definitivamente leeré más cuentos de Dr. Seuss porque me fascinó.

As with all the classic Dr.Seuss books, 'Horton' has that unique combination of:
Attractive illustrations and exciting verse – both very dynamic, always moving always going somewhere new; both very strange, silly and bizarre – all in an extremely accessible, engaging and compelling (and let’s not forget educational) way – which creates Dr Seuss’s fantastically immersive world.

Apparently 'Horton' provides us with some social commentary from Dr Seuss on the subject matter of isolationism and internationalism... whilst that may well have been in the back of Dr Seuss's mind (I understand there's a moral to all of his stories) - above all else he provides us a timeless world of the imagination, of amazing words, pictures, rhymes, stories, learning, but above all else – FUN

Along with that of 'The Lorax' (2012) - the animated adaptation of 'Horton' (2008) provides us with the only two examples where cinema has got anywhere close to capturing the wonderful world of Dr Seuss.

Not just for children, but for the child in all of us. 'A person's a person, no matter how small'.

"A person's a person no matter how small."

A person's a person no matter how small or big. A person's a person no matter what gender (male or female), age (young or old), born or unborn, race, ethnicity, cultural background, job, school, income, and intellectual or physical ability. The list goes on.

Be the voice for the voiceless.
A person's a person.

When Horton the elephant hears a small cry for help coming from a speck of dust, he immediately does what he can. However, the other animals in the jungle think there is nothing there and try to destroy that speck of dust. Can Horton prove to them that there is someone that needs to be protected?

Rereading this as an adult, I was struck by how strong the themes of standing up for what you believe and those who need your help are. But those themes never slow down the story, which features constant danger for the Whos. I actually found myself caught up in the story once again, hoping they’d be heard in time. Add in Seuss’s rhymes and illustrations and you’ve got a wonderful book.

Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.

الفيلم مختلف واحداثه اكتر واعمق

Honestly, I liked the animation that was made based on this book more.

2 sentences from the book:
A person's a person, no matter how small!
Their whole world was saved by the smallest of all!

Longer than I remember. Also, the other animals seemed strangely bothered by Horton't behavior.