With striped hats and hyped cats, these classics reinvent themselves

Illustrations: Esti Saposh

The famed doctor sat and
Worked on rewriting
His widely read classics
Now Purim-exciting
On these days, in this time
Mishpacha is delighting

In hocky and wacky
And all sorts of quacky
Places with people
That will make you weep’l (get it? weep just a little)

Like our Cousin Volozhin,
Gvirish Mulberry,
A leiner-complainer,
A sleepy mommy,
And Tatty who won’t drink
That glass of Chablis

So don red-white-striped hats
To read tomes from hyped cats
Just don’t spill your juice on
This selection from Seussan

Matzav on Mulberry

Shmuel Botnick

Circa 1939, a man named Theodore Geisel introduced the world to a wonderful little universe of rhyming absurdity. His debut publication was a book entitled And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The storyline describes a boy named Marco who says he sees many incredible sights on his way to school. His dad is incredulous; he does not believe his son.
But what do you say? Was Marco really lying? Could it be that there really are elephants and reindeers dancing on Mulberry Street?

It could be
And it could be not.
What are the thinks
That you have thought?

Is Marco really that uncouth?
Is he such a dishonest youth?
Or perhaps he is telling the truth?
We must retain a super-sleuth!
To fight tooth and nail and nail and tooth,
To prove that he’s an honest youth
Who ONLY tells the honest truth.

But we at Mishpacha magazine
Have some folks real shrewd and keen;
And they decided to hold fort
And snoop and spy and then report
All that they have heard and seen
To publish in the magazine.

So at last, the whole world will agree
That Marco spoke quite truthfully.
And YES, it certainly can be
That all the things he claims to see
Truly happen on Mulberry.

Well, my friend, yay or nay?
What do you think? What do you say?
Ah, you say that you don’t really know?
Well, then, friend, please read below…