Wacky Wednesday - More Dr. Seuss

How many of you parents, grandparents, and teachers have committed the beginnings and more  of your favorite Dr. Seuss books to memory?  I love them all, but three of our favorites are:

 

The Cat in the Hat:

"The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in the house

All that cold, cold wet day.

I sat there with Sally

We sat there, we two.

And I said 'How I wish 

We had something to do!'

                                        Too wet to go out

                                        Too cold to play ball.

                                        So we sat in the house

                                        And did nothing at all."

 

Green Eggs and Ham

"Do yo like 

green eggs and ham?

I do not like them

Sam-I-am.

I do not like 

green eggs and ham."

 

"One Fish 

Two Fish  

Red Fish 

Blue Fish 

black fish 

blue fish 

old fish 

new fish.  

This one has a little star.  

This one has a little car. 

Say! what a lot of fish there are. . ."

Teachers, children, parents, and grandparents celebrate Dr. Seuss and his books (and children's literature) the first week of March.  Thank you Dr. Seuss for bringing such fun to children's books.  Here is the rest of the Dr. Seuss Biography (continued from Barnes and Noble website.  Please note special insights and tidbits at the end):

Dr. Seuss Biography:

"Geisel was named president of Beginner Books, a new venture of Random House, where he worked with writers and artists like P.D. Eastman (Go Dog Go, Are You My Mother, Red, Stop! Green, Go!), Michael Frith (I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words), Al Perkins (The Nose Book, The Ear Book), and Roy McKie (My Book about Me, Would You Rather be a Bulldog), some of whom collaborated with him on book projects. For books he wrote but didn't illustrate, Geisel used the pen name Theo LeSieg (LeSieg is Geisel spelled backwards).

As Dr. Seuss, he continued to write bestsellers. Some, like Green Eggs and Ham and the tongue-twisting Fox in Socks, were aimed at beginning readers. Others could be read by older children or read aloud by parents, who were often as captivated as their kids by Geisel's wit and imagination. Geisel's visual style appealed to television and film directors, too: The animator Chuck Jones, who had worked with Geisel on a series of Army training films, brought How the Grinch Stole Christmas! to life as a hugely popular animated TV special in 1966. A live-action movie starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch was released in 2000. 

Many Dr. Seuss stories have serious undertones: The Butter Battle Book, for example, parodies the nuclear arms race. But whether he was teaching vocabulary words or values, Geisel never wrote plodding lesson books. All his stories are animated by a lively sense of visual and verbal play. At the time of his death in 1991, his books had sold more than 200 million copies. Bennett Cerf, Geisel's publisher, liked to say that of all the distinguished authors he had worked with, only one was a genius:  Dr. Seuss.

Of Interest:

The Cat in the Hat was written at the urging of editor William Spaulding, who insisted that a book for first-graders should have no more than 225 words. Later, Bennett Cerf bet Geisel $50 that he couldn't write a book with just 50 words. Geisel won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham, though to his recollection, Cerf never paid him the $50.

Geisel faced another challenge in 1974, when his friend Art Buchwald dared him to write a political book. Geisel picked up a copy of Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! and a pen, crossed out each mention of the name 'Marvin K. Mooney,' and replaced it with 'Richard M. Nixon.' Buchwald reprinted the results in his syndicated column. Nine days later, President Nixon announced his resignation.

The American Heritage Dictionary says the word 'nerd' first appeared in print in the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo:
'And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo 
And bring back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo 
A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!'

The word 'grinch,' after the title character in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, is defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as a killjoy or spoilsport."

Full name:  Theodor Seuss Geisel ; also:  Theo LeSieg, AKA:  Dr. Seuss

Date of Birth:  March 2, 1904

Place of Birth:  Springfield, Massachusetts

Date of Death:  September 4, 1991

Place of Death:  La Jolla, California