Creative words of wisdom series #6
Theodor Giesel (Dr. Seuss)
"Life may be a great balancing act, but it all, there’s fun to be done."
Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss, revolutionized the children’s book industry by playing around, being silly, having fun and thinking out of the box. His forty-five books have sold over two million copies to date and have helped and are still helping generations of children learn to read and enjoy language. Dr. Seuss has been called the moppets Milton.
Geisel’s first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, contained spirited drawings which became more and more embellished as little Marco let his imagination create his story. Some twenty-seven publishing houses rejected the story before he found a publisher in 1937. Next came The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins , The King’s Stilts, and Horton Hatches the Egg. The challenge to write a book with a limited number of words that would help the country solve illiteracy among children came to Dr. Seuss in 1955. His editor bet him that he could not write a book with just 225 words. Seuss took the word list home and studied it, looking for story lines, patterns, and sequences. Finally he decided to “play around,” so he looked for the first two words that rhymed. He found “cat” at the top of the list and half way down he found “hat.” The Cat in the Hat was published in 1957 followed by a host of others in the series of beginner books including Green Eggs and Ham written in 1960 with only fifty words!
Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904 to Henrietta Seuss and Theodore Robert Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father ran the family brewery and was on the Springfield Park and Zoo Board. He and his younger sister had a comfortable childhood amidst many German community celebrations with parades, sing-alongs, and nightly story telling sessions with their mother. In fact, he credits his mother for his love of words, rhyme, and rhythm. With his father he enjoyed frequent visits to the Springfield Zoo where he sketched animals with rollicking, exaggerated features. He developed a sense of fun that characterized his whole adult approach to creativity. In high school he played the mandolin, acted in school plays, and drew cartoons under the pseudonym of Pete the Pessimist for the school newspaper. At Dartmouth he took a lot of English courses, doodled throughout the lectures, and became editor of the humor magazine “Jack-O-Lantern.” It was at this time he began to sign his cartoons with his middle name and his mother’s maiden name, “Seuss.”
Although they are written in oral playful humor and visual fun, books by Dr. Seuss have not shied away from weighty subjects such as war (The Butter Battle Book), prejudice (The Sneetches and Other Stories), pollution (The Lorax), and greed (How the Grinch Stole Christmas). He received an Academy Award in 1951 for Best Animated Short Subject for the work entitled Gerald McBoing Boing and a Pulitzer Prize Citation in 1984 for his great contribution to education and literacy. His last book Oh the Places You’ll Go hit the adult best-seller list in 1990 and stayed there for two years. This gave Seuss much gratification that he was writing not only for children but also for people. Theodor Seuss Geisel died in his sleep in his studio on September 24, 1991 at the age of 87.
