Back to School
Part 2: Things You Can Do to Squares
We begin our tour of the Learning Kit with The Sesame Street Book of Shapes, the controversial expose that shaped the way a generation looked at shapes.
To start us off, this is how they introduce the concept of circles:
… which, you have to admit, is entirely accurate.
“Here are some CIRCLES,” the book says, and shows us some pictures of CIRCLES, before moving on to pictures of things that are shaped like CIRCLES: a phone dial, a tractor tire, bicycle wheels. Y’know. Circle stuff.
Then Bob introduces another shape, in a rare moment of self-awareness:
That’s followed by this peculiar double-page spread, reproduced here in its baffling entirety:
So that, apparently, is what you can do to squares. You don’t have to do that to squares, but it’s nice to know that you can if you want to.
Then we move on to rectangles, and we’re quizzed on whether we can find RECTANGLES in this picture:
Finally, in a shattering climax, Gordon makes the following admission:
After that, it’s pretty much all downhill. It’s hard to top a moment like that.
by Danny Horn
