Yes, Dr Seuss was a real person though his name was Theodor Seuss Geisel and he was called Ted. He wrote over 40 children’s books and all of them remain popular to this day because he made reading such fun. His success is attributed to his controlled use of vocabulary, simple text, humour, repetition, rhyme, his choice of words, imaginative illustrations and original characters. The books teach the skills that young readers need and inspire them to continue their reading journey.
Theodor Geisel first wrote under the name Seuss when he was a student at Dartmouth College. A party thrown by Ted and his friends resulted in Ted being asked to give up all his extra-curricular activities. He was editor-in-Chief of the College’s humour magazine at the time, so to continue to contribute to the Jack-o-Lantern without the administration’s knowledge, he began signing his work with the pen-name Seuss (which was his mother’s maiden name as well as his middle name).
After Dartmouth, Ted went to Oxford and it was during one of his classes there that his doodling caught the eye of a fellow American student named Helen Palmer and she suggested that he should become an artist instead of a professor. He found that he liked her advice and began to work as a cartoonist. (He liked more than her advise because they later married!)
Ted worked in advertising for 15 years but was a regular contributor to humour magazines, writing under the name Dr Seuss. With the arrival of World War II, Ted sought a commission with naval intelligence where he made animated movies relevant to the war effort.
In the latter years of the war, he began writing children’s stories, beginning with “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street”.
His turning point came when he was asked to write a children’s primer using 220 new-reader vocabulary words. While schools were reluctant to adopt “The Cat in the Hat” as an official primer, children and adults showed no such restraint and clamoured for copies.
The success of “The Cat in the Hat” elevated Dr Seuss from a pioneer in the field of writing and illustrating children’s books to a respected authority, a position he has held ever since. His book “Green Eggs and Ham” came about when his publisher, Bennet Cerf wagered that he couldn’t write a book using 50 words or less! Cerf had the vision to see that Ted was going to turn the children’s book world upside down and he created Beginner Books. His relationship with Dr Seuss as publisher and close friend lasted many years.
Ted, or Dr Seuss as we think of him, enjoyed writing entertaining books that encouraged children to read. However he was also concerned with moral and environmental issues and his book “The Lorax” has the theme of someone building a profitable business for themselves at the expense of a natural resource and those who depended on it for their survival.
Ted loved funny hats. He would wear them when he had writer’s block and often also at dinner parties at his home. If guests didn’t arrive wearing one, they were loaned one from Ted’s collection!
Dr Seuss received many honours for his work, not least a Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, given to an author or illustrator whose books have made a substantial contribution to and lasting impact on children’s literature.
Over the course of his long career, Ted Geisel wrote over 40 books, mostly under the name Dr Seuss, but over a dozen as Theo. LeSieg and one as Rosetta Stone. Nearly 30 of his Dr Seuss books have been adapted for television or video.
At the time of his death in September 1991, 200 million copies of his books, translated into 15 different languages had been sold and sales continue to climb as children (and adults) the world over discover and re-discover his delightful tales and at the same time learn important lessons in tolerance because, despite their differences, all of his characters are portrayed as being just as important as any other, as he says “A person’s a person, no matter how small” (from Horton Hears a Who).
Thank you Dr Seuss!
I hope you have found this article of value. Reading to my own children and grandchildren has been one of the bright spots in my life. I firmly believe reading to children helps to create a strong bond between you that lasts for a lifetime and Dr Seuss books were always fun for us all and firm favourites.
For more information on the best children’s book to read to, and with, your young child, please visit our childrens’ books website at http://www.fabfamilies.info
Author: Patricia Findlay
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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