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I know it's not very scientific, and therefore I can understand the article leaving it out, but a big reason for this dominance could be attributed to consisten

I know it's not very scientific, and therefore I can understand the article leaving it out, but a big reason for this dominance could be attributed to consistency of quality. I have a 5 year old daughter and an 8 month old son. We read at least 20 minutes a day with them and sometimes more. That adds up to a lot of books over 5 years, especially when you consider that some of these books only take 5-10 minutes to read. The truth is most children's books are "bad" from an adult perspective (not that the kids care). The art is amateurish, bland, or uninspired. The stories are cliche and boring. I know it sounds silly to say such things about children's literature... Until you pick up some of the best work by Dr. Seuss. It's like comparing Pixar to Saturday morning cartoons. Seuss' illustration is original and engaging. The Wordplay is fantastic. The stories' morals are layered and complex (Every entrepreneur and consumer on this board should read The Star Belly Sneetches immediately, if it's been more than a handful of years) which is crazy considering the simplicity of it all. It's not all gold, Dr. Seuss' body of work is massive and naturally there are hits and misses. But the hits are ingenious and work on multiple levels for multiple audiences. And the misses aren't bad. It's like your straight-A student bringing home a B. He's not the only game in town, of course, for timeless and truly ageless (ages 1-death) literature. Shel Silverstein gives him a real run for his money (and has a wicked subversive streak that Seuss is lacking, if that's your thing). Anyway, as a parent the durability of Seuss' body of work is easy to understand with the sociology and marketing analysis hijinks. The statistical dominance is quite impressive, and is surely a result of these multipliers acting on a product of unmatched quality.

lakeeffect 11y ago
>dominance could be attributed to quality. The truth is that most children's books are "bad" I couldn't agree more. We get about ten to fifteen children's books a week from the library and I'm utterly amazed that most have been published. The ones that are part of a more common series are usually much better. The llama llama mad at mama sort of books. Dr Suess definitely falls into this higher quality bracket. Many times I have wondered if they spend more time writing the about author section then they do the book. I see this as a market that could use some serious improvement.
oliv__ 11y ago
I was looking for a link to The Sneetches you mentioned. Found this: http://www.csun.edu/faculty/sheena.malhotra/GRCS-Files/Final%20Projects/The%20Sneetches.htm http://www.csun.edu/faculty/sheena.malhotra/GRCS-Files/Final... (It's missing the illustrations obviously but still a gread read.)
daltonlp 11y ago
Dr. Seuss had quite a few D's and F's - but that didn't slow him down. His "5000 fingers" film was a flop. His attempts to produce works for an adult audience went nowhere. But he never, ever quit. And he had extremely high standards. As a result, some of his funniest and most creative work was seen only in newspaper ads and trade shows. He also had a run of amazing editorial cartoons during WWII (Dr. Seuss Goes to War is a great collection of them.)

lakeeffect 11y ago

>dominance could be attributed to quality. The truth is that most children's books are "bad" I couldn't agree more. We get about ten to fifteen children's books a week from the library and I'm utterly amazed that most have been published. The ones that are part of a more common series are usually much better. The llama llama mad at mama sort of books. Dr Suess definitely falls into this higher quality bracket. Many times I have wondered if they spend more time writing the about author section then they do the book. I see this as a market that could use some serious improvement.

oliv__ 11y ago

I was looking for a link to The Sneetches you mentioned. Found this: http://www.csun.edu/faculty/sheena.malhotra/GRCS-Files/Final%20Projects/The%20Sneetches.htm http://www.csun.edu/faculty/sheena.malhotra/GRCS-Files/Final... (It's missing the illustrations obviously but still a gread read.)

daltonlp 11y ago

Dr. Seuss had quite a few D's and F's - but that didn't slow him down. His "5000 fingers" film was a flop. His attempts to produce works for an adult audience went nowhere. But he never, ever quit. And he had extremely high standards. As a result, some of his funniest and most creative work was seen only in newspaper ads and trade shows. He also had a run of amazing editorial cartoons during WWII (Dr. Seuss Goes to War is a great collection of them.)