The Originals: Dr. Seuss

Is there anything more amusical?
Than to take time to talk about all things Seussical?
Creations like the Sneetches, the Grinch, and the Whoses
Taught children to read and took away blueses
On an egg Horton sat, and Mr. Brown can moo
Opening kids' eyes up to worlds brand new
So sit back, relax, maybe have a clamdimeral
And read about Dr. Seuss, a true Original

Born Theodor Seuss Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904, to brewmaster/park superintendent in charge Theodor Robert and Henrietta Geisel. The gift of rhyme was given to him by his mother, who would soothe her children by reciting rhymes she learned as a child. But the man who would become a legendary children's author didn't set out to become that at first.

Enrolling at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, he took over as editor-in-chief for the school's humor magazine "Jack O' Lantern." However, he lost the post not long after, when he and his friends were caught having a drinking party, which was against school policy, and worse still, the law of the land, Prohibition. This little matter didn't stop him from contributing to the magazine, however. He submitted work under a pen name, his middle name, his mother's maiden name: "Seuss." The "Dr." would be added for the first time in work six months after his graduation in the humor magazine "The Judge."

Following his father's wishes after graduation, he went off to England to attend Lincoln College, Oxford, to obtain a doctorate in literature. He didn't stick with it, however (the Dr. in his pen name is an acknowledgment of his father's unfufilled hopes), academia boring him, and toured Europe instead. He did, however, meet Helen Palmer there, the woman who would become two important things in his life: his first wife and a children's book author and editor.

Returning to the States, Ted's first aspiration was to become a cartoonist. To this end, he had work published in, among other publications, the famous "Saturday Evening Post." World War II brought him a new focus, though, as his work took on a political edge. It was published in a liberal publication called "PM," and went after many subjects: attacking Hitler and Mussolini for their cruelty, isolationists (most famously, Charles Lindbergh) for wanting to stay out of war, and, paradoxically, chastising America for their racism against blacks and Jews while calling Japanese Americans high traitors.

He joined the war effort directly, starting in 1942, doing posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board. 1943 saw him join the Army, becoming commander of the First Motion Picture Unit's Animation Department in the United States Army Air Force. His work there included 1945's "Your Job in Germany," a propaganda film about the coming peace in Europe, and his first Oscar-winning work, "Design for Death," a 1947 study of Japanese culture, both of which he wrote. He also made animated training films featuring Private Snafu, his first animated work.

Ted made his entry into chidren's literature by illustrating a collection of children's sayings for Viking Press called "Boners." The book wasn't commercially successful, but his illustrations were praised by critics. Even with this, his first book, "And To Think I Saw It All on Mulberry Street" was still rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press, in 1937. The books that followed were pretty good, too, like "Horton Hatches the Egg" in 1940, "Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose" in 1948, and, if not for a certain feline, the book that would probably be his most famous, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," in 1957, among many.

Now for the matter of that feline.

In May 1954, "Life" magazine published a study on illiteracy in children, pinning the blame on boring books for this shortcoming. Ted's publishers gave him a list of 400 words he felt were important, and asked Ted to cut them to 250. He cut them even further than that, to 220, and, in 1957, gave children's literature what could be its most enduring classic, about two bored kids on a rainy day who wanted something, anything, to happen. It was "The Cat in The Hat," if you can imagine that.

The books kept coming and the legend kept growing. "Yertle the Turtle," "Green Eggs and Ham," "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish," "Dr. Seuss's ABC's," "Hop on Pop," "Fox in Socks," the list goes on and on, 44 in all, which, in turn, spawned 11 children's TV specials, the Broadway musical "Seussical," and two (soon to be three) major motion pictures (the animated "Horton Hears a Who" comes out March 14, 2008).

Dr. Seuss, possibly the most famous children's author in history, had no children of his own. He passed away on September 4, 1991, at 87, following a long illness. However, his second wife, Audrey, had a daughter, Lark Grey Dimond-Cates, who watched many of the fabulous Dr. Seuss characters come to life first-hand at his studio in La Jolla, California, which most likely inspired her to become an artist.

She became a sculptor, and her work can be seen back where it all started for Dr. Seuss, in Springfield, at the Quadrangle. In this area, where the Springfield Library, the Springfield Science Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts stand is a massive sculpture garden, with many of the famous Seuss characters featured, literacy its main theme, a beautiful reminder to read and made to inspire more artists the way Springfield inspired Theodor Geisel.

She's just one adult inspired by Seuss. Judge James Muirhead, of the U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, received a hard-boiled egg in the mail from Charles Jay Wolff, an inmate, as a protest for not receiving a kosher diet as requested by him, as an Orthodox Jew. Muirhead responded with Seussian flair, writing a judgment stating, "I do not like eggs in the file/I do not like them in any style/I will not take them fried or boiled/I will not take them poached or broiled/I will not take them soft or scrambled/Despite an argument well-rambled/No fan I am of the egg at hand/Destroy that egg! Today! Today I say! Without delay!"

Even now, to this day, at the end of the road
People read him to themselves, out loud, or to a toad
For the memories, for the characters
Like the Cat and Cindy Lou Who
Thank you, Dr. Seuss
We love you.