Dr. Seuss, An American Legend

I don’t think that there is a person on this green earth that did not love reading Dr. Seuss as a kid, I tell you I sure did...Dr. Seuss books were my favorite thing to read there for a while; if there is a child growing up in America that has not read Dr. Seuss then he is being culturally deprived, and that is a fact.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904, and although he wrote under more then one pen-name his Dr. Seuss books became the most popular, Theodor Seuss Geisel was the person that wrote such classics as Mr. Brown can moo, The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. If you have not gotten these books for your kid then please do because they are great for small children. Not only did Theodor write awesome books but also many of them have been turned into films.

Theodor’s grandparents immigrated to America from Germany and they settled in Springfield, Massachusetts; his father and grandfather were the local brew masters in Springfield so when the law of prohibition came along it is understandable that Theodor was totally against it. After going through school, Seuss eventually became an editor in chief but almost got kicked out when he was caught throwing a drinking party, that is when he started using the name Dr. Seuss.

He entered college in Oxford with the hopes of getting a Ph.D in literature but he met a girl named Helen Geisel and they got married, this was in the year 1927; after moving back to America with his new wife, Seuss started writing again….starting out with writing for different magazines, he also did advertisements, one in particular was for a popular insecticide, "Flit", the advertisement quickly became famous. He made it through the Great Depression by drawing for advertising companies and by working on a comic strip.

Dr. Seuss wrote his first book while on sea, they say that the rhythm of the ships engines inspired him when he wrote "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street".

World War II came along and again Dr. Seuss started writing and cartooning, this time it was in a New York City newspaper, he wrote against racism, the dictators of the time and he gave his full support to President Roosevelt, while taking some jabs at the Republican Party every now and then.

After doing that for a time, Dr. Seuss decided that he had to get more involved in the war effort, in 1942 he started drawing posters for the Treasury Department but this did not last long as he went even further and joined the army. He became the commander of the First Motion Picture Unit and there is where he wrote movies and films against the war and about peace and so on...just a note, he received more then one reward for his work in the movies.

When the war ended Dr. Seuss started writing books for children again, this was the time that they say he wrote his best works, writing such books as the book, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".

It was soon after this that it was discovered that there were many illiterate children because their books were too boring…this (and his editor) pushed Dr. Seuss to start writing books for small children, books that were called Beginners Books, they were designed specifically to help children learn how to read. He wrote these books for children and they were such a success because he did it all with his unique writing style and his delightful art.

That was another thing that is so impressive about his books, they were done in such a different art style then people were used to. Dr. Seuss loved to use a lot of fur and feathers flowing in different directions, and everything that has straight lines in real life had rounded or droopy lines in the world of Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss’s wife committed suicide while she was ill in 1967, and Dr. Seuss remarried the following year, and after several more years of writing and enjoying life, Dr. Seuss died in California in the year 1991.

He may be gone but his books are still with us and they are really worth reading, because there is nothing else in the world that can compare with a good Dr. Seuss book.