Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss

Book vs. movie 3 of 3

This story is one of Dr. Seuss’ masterpieces. It is about an elephant, Horton who hears a Who. Horton is the only one who can here the Who because elephants have very keen hearing. A Who is a very small person, and they live on a speck. The book uses rhyme, just like all of Dr. Seuss’ books to convey its message. In this case the message is that everyone is important, no matter who you are, how small you are, or how big you are. Horton keeps saying, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
There are many similarities and differences between the movie and the book. In both the book and the movie, Horton is a very likeable character. However in the movie he is funny and a little carefree. The movie gave some background information on where the speck (Whoville) came from and the book did not. The movie focused more on Whoville than the book did, and the movie had more characters than the book. There was more jungle animals involved in the movie. There was even an evil twist in the movie; this was when Mrs. Kangaroo went to Mr. Vladikoff to get his help with getting the speck (now on a clover) away from Horton. This scene was made to be scaring in the movie, where in the book it was the monkeys who took the clover away from Horton and gave it to Mr. Vladikoff. In both the book and the movie, Mr. Vladikoff drops the clover in a field of clovers and Horton searches for it until he finds the right one on the three millionth one. All throughout the book, the little kangaroo would agree with his mother, but in the movie, you can tell the little kangaroo wants to join Horton. At the end of the book everyone is joyful because they can hear the Whos, but at the end of the movie when everyone hears the Whos, Mrs. Kangaroo is very unhappy because she was wrong.
I liked this book because of its simple message and Horton’s very likeable character and perseverance. For the most part, I liked the movie. However, there were many parts of the movie that I thought were boring. Of course, the movie was a feature film; it had to have more excitement, more explanation, and more scenes to make it long enough for a feature film. The thing I like the most about the film was that it kept the same message as the book, “A person is a person, no matter how small.”