Ruth Krauss

What is a hole? A hole is when you step in it you go down A hole is for a mouse to live in. And, of course,a hole is to dig. This is the funniest book of definitions you'll ever read!

A Hole Is to Dig

John Manoogian III

This book is a gem for kids. We’ve read it for years since my child was very young. It’s a rare collector’s item now; the hardcover edition is auto-priced north of a $100 on the river website. I was at the Maurice Sendak exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF and scored a new copy, purely by blind luck.

What’s funny to me about the other reviews on here, especially the lackluster and negative reviews, is they seem to have totally missed the central device of this beautifully simple, nonsense book: that the objects in the book were the questions asked of kids, and the text is children’s answers. (tablespoon: “What is a tablespoon for?” → kid: “To eat a table!” “what are hands for?” → kid: “To hold!”, etc. )

People have no empathy, or no imagination, I guess. 

Folks on here really writing reviews like “uh this says A Book of First Definitions but they seem kinda weird……” yes because they’re young kids’ definitions, my gentle smoothbrain, that’s it — that’s literally what the book is lol

A Hole Is to Dig

Reviews