I think what you get out of a book is more about the person reading it, and what they are looking for, than it is about the story itself.
Dr. Seuss's "Oh, the places you'll go" could be read by one person as just a whimsical children's tale. Someone else, though, might see it as an interesting allegory on the journeys that a person might face in their own life.
Likewise, I might look at a squirrel burying nuts in the ground, and see just a squirrel. But a buddhist monk might derive some great wisdom from watching the very same thing.
