Watch out! Take heed! There are Hunches around!
That slippery Seuss let them loose around town!
They're here to confuse you, to crumble your brain.
You best make a choice or they'll drive you insane.

Hunches in Bunches, from the year eighty-two,
Tells the tale of boy who can't decide what to do.
Making his mind up is no easy task.
The fidgets have got him in their fidgety grasp!

In come the Hunches to help make the call
But as it turns out, they're no help at all.
The lesson we learn is to make up our minds
Just do it! Seuss says, and then you'll unwind.

This Seussish surprise didn't garner big praise
But it's certainly worth your Seuss-reading days.
And you can't cut corners, there's no movie to see
Only one lone Mr. Hunch has appeared on TV.

If you're feeling unsure, in wavering mode
Hunches will urge you to get the show on the road.
And the first decision you should probably make?
READ THE BOOK!, we say. That's the step you should take!

Parents and teachers will absolutely care about Hunches in Bunches because it teaches kids an important lesson. Okay, maybe that's an obvious statement since this is a children's book—a genre jammed-pack with lesson imparting literature—but there's a bonus to be had here. This one will teach children an important lesson while they sit quietly listening, completely enraptured by the story and oblivious of the lesson is being beamed directly into their brains.

See, while children are caught up in the Looney Tunes-esque chaos filling the pages of Hunches in Bunches, the story teaches them the important lesson about how to deal with the fidgets.

Yep, the fidgets.

Everyone has a hard time making up their minds every now and then. But we often confuse beating the fidgets with finding just the right thing. Hunches in Bunches suggests that the true issue is simply making up your mind. Once you've done that, it doesn't matter what you do because the problem of making up your mind will be resolved.

Parents and teachers know that this lesson will carry over later in life to when a child has to decide between more important issues than a six hot dog lunch or video games. But by indulging in good habits about making up their mind now, children will keep those habits with them later.

Hunches in Bunches manages all this, and all without a single "here be the moral" sentence.

Why Your Kid Should Care

If you take away the slapstick shotgun blasts, you'll see that Hunches in Bunches is really a mental rendition of Looney Tunes. Like Elmur Fudd caught between Daffy and Bugs, the poor boy is stuck between bunches of Hunches, unable to make up his mind about what he wants to do.

Children will care about the Hunches the same way they care about the antics of Tweety, Wile E. Coyote, and Foghorn Leghorn. The Hunches are zany, do crazy things, and live larger than life on the page. They have exaggerated features, like the weird hand hats, and although they try to help the boy, their craziness only seems to hold the kid back from actually making a decision.

Also like the Looney Tunes, kids will enjoy the way the story escalates as it goes on. What starts as a simple question of "What do I want to do?" grows and grows until the chore of finding an answer has become total anarchy. Not anarchy with street riots and graffiti splattered across brick walls, mind you, but the more good-natured sort of anarchy. And if there's one thing children and adults should find enjoyable together, it's a little good-natured chaos.