My Favorite Childhood Reads
Dr. Seuss has his own Facebook wall. The Grinch is all over
it, urging visitors to “grow your heart 3 sizes” by doing a good deed each day
from now until Christmas.
I read some odd books as a kid. In some ways, Dr. Seuss’s books are among the oddest – but they’re also some of the best known and universally loved. Who doesn’t instantly recognize the Cat in the Hat’s red-striped stovepipe? Who couldn’t, on command, recite a few lines of Green Eggs and Ham?
I think The Cat in the Hat was the first Seuss book I read. I loved it. It was so much better than those dull Dick-and-Jane readers we used in primary school. I was even more fascinated when the Cat came back, left a nasty ring in his unwilling hosts’ bathtub, and wound up staining the whole hillside a garish pink.
Having gotten acquainted with the distinctive look of Dr. Seuss characters, I started to seek them out whenever I went to the library. I met Horton the elephant, Sam-I-Am, Bartholomew Cubbins of the 500 hats, the pointlessly prejudiced Sneetches, the parade of wildly fanciful creatures that marched across the pages of If I Ran the Zoo and If I Ran the Circus (two of my favorites.) And of course the immortal Grinch, who tried to eliminate Christmas and wound up saving himself.
I am clearly not the only kid who never forgot these stories. Just last night I went Christmas caroling with a group of friends. We came upon a front-yard display with life-size cutouts of the Grinch, his dog Max and a whole village of Whos. No kids in sight, just a middle-aged man who came out to listen. We sang him all six verses of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” from the movie version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
As a writer, I have other reasons to admire Dr. Seuss. His galloping verses, so easy to read, couldn’t have been easy to write. But he kept turning them out, decade upon decade, still publishing new works long after I grew up. The Seuss Enterprises website says there are 44 books under the name of Dr. Seuss, plus 22 more that he wrote under other pen names. Okay, none of them is a tome like War and Peace, but still. Each one tells a story, or presents a new idea, or makes a point. And of course he did his own illustrations, too.
Here’s a bit that’s often mentioned in writers’ workshops, when they’re coaching us on the kind of determination it may take to break into the publishing market: Dr. Seuss’s first kiddie book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was turned down by at least twenty publishers. They didn’t know what to do with it. They couldn’t see where it fit. What if he’d given up after the tenth rejection letter? Or the 12th, or the 15th? This story lives in my memory bank and pops up whenever I need reminding: if I really have something to say, don’t let the naysayers hush me up.
Theodor Seuss Geisel had plenty to say, and he’s still saying it. Go to the kids’ section of your library, your favorite bookstore, and you’ll see. Pull up one of the movies based on his books (they're still making new ones!) Or go check out some holiday decorations.
I read some odd books as a kid. In some ways, Dr. Seuss’s books are among the oddest – but they’re also some of the best known and universally loved. Who doesn’t instantly recognize the Cat in the Hat’s red-striped stovepipe? Who couldn’t, on command, recite a few lines of Green Eggs and Ham?
I think The Cat in the Hat was the first Seuss book I read. I loved it. It was so much better than those dull Dick-and-Jane readers we used in primary school. I was even more fascinated when the Cat came back, left a nasty ring in his unwilling hosts’ bathtub, and wound up staining the whole hillside a garish pink.
Having gotten acquainted with the distinctive look of Dr. Seuss characters, I started to seek them out whenever I went to the library. I met Horton the elephant, Sam-I-Am, Bartholomew Cubbins of the 500 hats, the pointlessly prejudiced Sneetches, the parade of wildly fanciful creatures that marched across the pages of If I Ran the Zoo and If I Ran the Circus (two of my favorites.) And of course the immortal Grinch, who tried to eliminate Christmas and wound up saving himself.
I am clearly not the only kid who never forgot these stories. Just last night I went Christmas caroling with a group of friends. We came upon a front-yard display with life-size cutouts of the Grinch, his dog Max and a whole village of Whos. No kids in sight, just a middle-aged man who came out to listen. We sang him all six verses of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” from the movie version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
As a writer, I have other reasons to admire Dr. Seuss. His galloping verses, so easy to read, couldn’t have been easy to write. But he kept turning them out, decade upon decade, still publishing new works long after I grew up. The Seuss Enterprises website says there are 44 books under the name of Dr. Seuss, plus 22 more that he wrote under other pen names. Okay, none of them is a tome like War and Peace, but still. Each one tells a story, or presents a new idea, or makes a point. And of course he did his own illustrations, too.
Here’s a bit that’s often mentioned in writers’ workshops, when they’re coaching us on the kind of determination it may take to break into the publishing market: Dr. Seuss’s first kiddie book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was turned down by at least twenty publishers. They didn’t know what to do with it. They couldn’t see where it fit. What if he’d given up after the tenth rejection letter? Or the 12th, or the 15th? This story lives in my memory bank and pops up whenever I need reminding: if I really have something to say, don’t let the naysayers hush me up.
Theodor Seuss Geisel had plenty to say, and he’s still saying it. Go to the kids’ section of your library, your favorite bookstore, and you’ll see. Pull up one of the movies based on his books (they're still making new ones!) Or go check out some holiday decorations.
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