What Parents Should Know
Kids cheer for huge Horton, defender of the small. They identify with the spindly little beings of the dust speck, and rail against the sour kangaroo and his monkey henchmen.

Common Sense Media Review
Inside hulking Horton dwells the soul of a gentle, steadfast caretaker. Seuss uses the elephant's immensity to make a point about taking care of those more vulnerable than ourselves. In one two-page picture, Horton is so huge that there are only a few scraps of blue sky showing. In contrast, the dust speck on the pink clover is bitty indeed. (And if their planet is this tiny, how microscopic are the Whos?) Gigantic-eared Horton hears them all along--perhaps his compassionate soul acts as a cosmic hearing aid.

A kindergarten audience picked right up on Horton's egalitarian motto: "A person's a person ... " They gasped as the thuggish Wickersham brothers prepared to "dunk that dumb speck in the Beezle-Nut juice!" They shouted a joyous "Yop!" along with Jo-Jo, who comes through after the Mayor gives a stirring speech reminiscent of Winston Churchill: "'This,' cried the Mayor, 'is your town's darkest hour! / The time for all Whos who have blood that is red / To come to the aid of their country!' he said."

Other gentle picture books dealing with prejudice include Seuss's The Butter Battle Book, and Bernard Waber's Lovable Lyle.