On Seuss day kids ate green eggs on a plate

NEWPORT BEACH — Kennedy Mulvaney performed the most treacherous feat in all of children’s literature Friday morning: eating green eggs and ham.

She did not eat them on a boat. She did not eat them with a goat. She did not eat them in a box. She did not eat them with a fox. But the Eastbluff Elementary School second-grader chowed down with her classmates in the school’s multipurpose room during recess, when parent volunteers laid out dyed hard-boiled eggs and slivers of ham on a table in back.

So how did green eggs and ham — the subject of the legendary Dr. Seuss book — actually taste?

“They taste like normal eggs and ham,” said Kennedy, 7.

Every year on March 2, Eastbluff joins other schools across America in celebrating the birthday of the classic children’s author. Principal Charlene Metoyer led the festivities Friday in the multipurpose room, donning pajamas and a tall red and white hat, and reading “Green Eggs and Ham” to a crowd of young students.

Eastbluff honored the late Theodor Seuss Geisel in a number of ways on Friday. Staffers and students wore their pajamas throughout the day, and Metoyer invited fathers to visit the classrooms and read stories — either Seuss classics or personal favorites.

“It’s very neat because you have dads in the classroom, which is not always the case,” said Carol Crane, vice president of the PTA.

Metoyer, who counted “Eggs” as her favorite Seuss book, said the school picks a book every year that relates well to a snack. Last year, she read “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” and handed out goldfish crackers. “Green Eggs and Ham,” she noted, offered a valuable lesson about picky eating.

“How many of you have ever tried something that you thought you didn’t like, and then you tried it and it was actually good?” she asked the students in the multipurpose room before starting the book.

When a number of hands shot up, she replied, “Go figure.”