Our way in
Here’s a series of unforgivable mistakes I’ve made and how I’ve learned nothing from them, a main character tells a child.
The idea taking hold in me lately is that (when I can) it’s all about being there > being there is what it’s all about. But my brain needs something more to chew on while I’m resting from meds and the heat (I read that my meds regimen is like trying to build infrastructure and fight a war. I’m glad I found this book again when I did.)
The Butter Battle Book
AP and I did an analysis of The Lorax last year (
) and here is one of a book I read in 6th grade. Library of Congress Summary:
Engaged in a long-running battle, the Yooks and Zooks develop more and more sophisicated weaponry as they attempt to outdo each other.
In my class, we were asked to brainstorm solutions to the standoff and we were guided first to bread-related answers (butter both sides of the toast, don't butter the toast at all) and then nothing conclusive. This was shortly after 9/11. Also, Dr. Seuss worked as a propoganda/military advertisement cartoonist early in his career, so he's just uniquely cutting at it; I wish we had talked about that!
Like The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book follows a child narrator (our “way in”) being told about a longstanding rivalry between two older men: in The Lorax, one inflicting a series of unforgivable mistakes upon the land and ecosystem, while the other tries to stop him peacefully with words.
In this one, the Grandfather explains a bizarre story to a child —with the words “horrible” and “terrible” attributed to identical-nosed people in pajama attire who are untrustworthy because they butter their bread on the bottom, we’re told— about how he deputized himself in his youth to hold a prickly branch menacingly while making eye contact over the wall. Like the Once-ler (which looks like Uncle) in The Lorax, he learns nothing from this experience except to keep on “biggering”, doubling down.
AP and I read in Bitsy and Boozle tell a story (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sara-goetter/bitsy-boozle-tell-a-story highly recommend, a graphic novel about story structure) that the antagonist/villain prevents the protagonist/hero from getting what they want. In The Butter Battle Book, the protagonist is the Grandfather and the other Yooks, and their aim seems to be to impose that everyone must butter bread on the top > which muddles and morphs into an aim of dominating, eclipsing their opponent every time they feel inferior, eclipsed. VanItch and the other Zooks have the opposite aim (bread-wise) in a parallel hero journey structure.
Dr. Seuss has a real gift for action and contrast. Your eyes always go to a dominant character on the page, and this book is a tennis match that no one wins.
AP noted rightly that the orange clothes (not pictured, my bad but you can see the blue uniform below) evoke prison jumpsuits, in contrast to the Grandfather’s blue police-ish uniform.
The snicke-berry switch page was the original cover. This was probably changed (to blue and orange flags) to mellow the menace and amp up the satire of the book.
This book employs a propoganda poster, and brief, fascinating visits to a “war room” (AP and I love the goofy table and chair feet) with symbols that have been coopted to mean nothing; above is the page in which the Grandfather looks happiest and hapless (the war room page after this has gray walls and the general and Back Room Boys look nervous). We see VanItch and the Grandfather in increasingly colorful military regalia, clearly getting parallel bad advice.
The book has the word Book in the title (unusual, though I have to admit the alliteration is nice), as if it’s already telling us that it is a thing about something else. And we know that it is: that Yooks and Zooks are fictional standins for real feuds over real and imagined slights.
My favorite page is also the most ridiculous one. The band leader is doing a jaunty dance in her unusual shoes ahead of flagged Crusaders on the page before this, and below she looks like a wet, angry cat. In my opinion, every Dr. Seuss book —that is about a series of escalating mistakes. The Cat in the Hat books count, also Yertle the Turtle— has a page that is not the climax, but in which the character who is narrating should know to change course before the plot becomes irretrievably derailed, and plods ahead anyway. A page of their greatest folly. I love that the middle woman and the dog share a chastened, sheeplike expression and posture.
The plot ends in a cliffhanger, with the Grandfather and VanItch each about to drop a pink egg-shaped bomb on their opponent’s side of the wall. We analyzed that it looks like VanItch will drop it first (there are emphasis lines around the bomb he's holding and he has a triumphant facial expression). And also that the predictable, preventable ruin at the end doesn't matter. It tells us that the protagonist/antagonist dichotomy has not been served by these stories that each side has told themselves. Also, there are several pages on which fellow Yooks are whooping on top of houses in the distance as the Grandfather goes to best the Zooks for one page again. I like how he combines serious and exaggerated imagery.
Podcast corner
Transcripts are available.
Radiolab for kids podcast about Greenland Sharks: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab-kids/articles/terrestrials-10-the-sea-troll-an-everlasting-shark
Radiolab for kids podcast about dogs and coyotes: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab-kids/articles/the-howler-the-dog-who-joined-a-coyote-pack
This is Love, the pig and the pumpkin story: https://thisislovepodcast.com/episode-104-beaver-in-the-christmas-aisle-pig-in-the-pumpkins-camel-on-the-run/
Criminal, lighter fare than these usually are and I love Phoebe’s interviews: https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-323-the-clearwater-monster-7-4-2025
Music corner
Music for when you won’t do lyrics: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-tx_HGCUvzJViP5T9uB-RE6rAWDuGG0d&si=KdxWQRriEexZX7TP