Theodore Seuss Geisel is known worldwide for his funny rhyming story poetry. But he is known by a different name, Dr. Seuss. All age groups recognize him, from his early political cartoons to his strange children books written in rhyme.

 Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904. He went to Dartmouth College and studied English literature. Geisel began to write in and edited the schools humor magazine. This is when he first started signing as Seuss. Seuss graduated in 1925. He started to study at Oxford University when his future first wife, Helen Palmer, told him to become an artist when she saw him doodling in a class one day.

Seuss decided that he would like to tour Europe. On his way there he wrote and illustrated his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.  He got some of his influence, people and places,  from his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. He finally got it published by Vanguard Press after 27 different publishers rejected it.

Seuss returned to the USA and began to start a career as a cartoonist for The Saturday Evening Post. He mostly did advertisements. After, and as the WWII began, the crazy cartoonist joined the Army and started to make animated training movies featuring a trainee called Private Snafu.

Seuss was published in many different big magazines such as Life, Vanity Fair, Judge, and many others doing political cartoons about the war and the United States. And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street had become a big success and so Seuss started to write others after that. Some include The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and Horton Hatches the Egg.

The Cat in the Hat became Geisel’s biggest success and really started his career of children’s cartoon drawing, poem writing author. He signed deals with Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House publishers. Houghton Mifflin asked Seuss to create a book using 225 “new-reader” vocabulary words. This is what brought The Cat

in the Hat The Cat in The Hat (recording).

Dr. Seuss had been born. He started writing, what are now classics, such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Green Eggs and Ham, and Horton Hears a Who!. 

Theodor Seuss Geisel, near the end of his life, wrote some books in his classic rhyming scheme that where meant for adults more than kids, but where still written in kid fashion. The most widely known one is The Lorax, an environmentally conscience creature trying to stop the trees from being cut down. Another book that is about the arms race, cold war, and unknown nuclear annihilation, The Butter Battle Book. In 1990 Seuss wrote a new and last book called Oh the Places You’ll Go!  

EXCERPTS:

     from Green Eggs And Ham Green Eggs and Ham (recording)

          "I do not like them in a box.

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