To friends and family in Springfield, he was Theodore Geisel. He didn't become Dr. Seuss
until he and some friends were punished for hosting a party at University where people
were drinking alcohol.
"Dr. Seuss" was a masculine take on "Mother Goose", and this pen name allowed him to
keep contributing to the school paper.
After graduating, he pursued a Ph.D. in English literature at Oxford, but dropped out to wander around Europe after deciding his studies were "astonishingly irrelevant".
His first fame came with this campaign for Flit
bug spray, which became a meme back in the day.
Next, he became known for his editorial cartoons...
His first book was To Think That I Saw It
on Mulberry Street in 1937. Before it came out on Vanguard Press, it had been rejected 27 times
by other publishers.
The Cat in the Hat was born in response to
an article in Life Magazine in 1954, criticizing American school primers as intensly boring, unchallenging to readers and responsible
for causing harm to children's literacy.
Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write
and illustrate a children's primer using
only 225 "new-reader" vocabulary words,
and 'the Cat' was born!
In 1960, publisher Bennett Cerf bet him $50
that he couldn't create a great book using
only fifty words.
Geisel won the bet with Green Eggs and Ham
- it uses 50 words, and only one has more
than one syllable - "anywhere".
I don't know when I first met Horton, but he changed my life. The sincerity, commitment
and humble decency of this beautiful pachyderm resonated deep inside me, and it still does today.
Over 60 years, he created some of the most magical, memorable, timeless characters
in all of American literature.
His last book was Oh, the Places You'll Go! in 1990.
When he died on September 24, 1991, Ted Geisel had written and illustrated 44 children's books.
His books had been translated into more than 15 languages, and more than 200 million copies
had found their way into hearts and homes around the world.
Who knows how many children learned
to read thanks to his work?
How many moms and dads
spent precious moments together
with their kids, sharing his books?
What an amazing gift to the world.
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