Yeah, why don't we see the Onceler's face?

Well, I hope that Sara gets some time to do another catch up. I'll try to get some time too. China was great, my new job is going well. But I'm not here to talk about that now...

One of Willow's homework assignments is to read to us for at least 15 minutes each day. She is a fantastic reader. I used to wonder if she was simply reciting the words or if she really understood what she was reading. This homework assignment has help answer that. She really does usually understand what she reads and can formulate some really good questions.

Earlier this week Willow chose to read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. As she was reading, she would often stop and ask some really thoughtful questions. The question she asked that I found the most profound was:
Why don't we ever get to see the Onceler's face?

Now that isn't a question about the words on the page, but as with most Dr. Seuss books, the pictures are an important part of the story. Not only had I never given it any thought, I hadn't even noticed that we never saw the Onceler. I want Willow to be a diamond reader*, so I tried to discuss the question with her without simply telling her what I think the answer is. I think that by the end she did grok that there wasn't one right answer. Some of the ideas she put forth were:

• Because he is shy
• Because he doesn't like going outside. (This one we dismissed because in the story he does go outside.)
• Because he feels guilty

The last one impressed me. We discussed the question and her answers for a while. If it hadn't been so late I might have attempted to see what she thought about the idea of the Onceler being a "stand in for faceless corporations." I'm not sure I could have explained it in simple enough terms, though. And I definitely wasn't ready for that discussion just before bed time. I was tempted to keep her up talking, but I didn't want her to be too tired for school in the morning, though.

-JEEP
After much searching, here is the quote I was referencing above. I really like this quote and I fear that I'm not a Mogul Diamond. :(

Readers may be divided into four classes:

1.) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.

2.) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.

3.) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.

4.) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~