My niece had heard this Dr. Seuss book before; last year her school did a Dr. Seuss week, and over the course of that week they read so many Dr. Seuss books she actually came to rather loathe his stories. My nephew and I, I though, had never heard of this story.I was actually pleasantly surprised by this book. It was almost totally devoid of Seussian rhymes (this is not always a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned), and the story itself was well written and interesting. I really enjoyed the characters--they all had a personality, which facilitated creating unique voices for them. It was fun to read!
My nephew really enjoyed the story, and he was eagerly trying to figure out what the king's magicians were going to call down from the sky. He found the story to be entertaining, funny, and exciting. And you know what? Even my Seuss-saturated niece liked Bartholomew and the Oobleck after we read it together. This is a good one!