Almanac of Story Tellers: Dr. Seuss

 Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of  March 2nd

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     It is the 61st day of the year, leaving 304 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better know as the children's author, Dr. Seuss, was born in Springfield, Mass.

    An illustrator and teller of fantastical stories, Dr. Seuss filled his children's books with whimsical characters having inventive, if sometimes mischievous adventures. Often writing with nonsense words in sprightly rhymes, he created the Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2, the Grinch, the hearer of the Who, and the Sneetches.

     His books amused children and parents alike, and his 60 titles have sold more than 600 million copies around the world. He helped rear several generations of children, teaching them to equate playing and reading,  He did so well that his birthday is celebrated as National Read Across America Day.

  

   He wrote not only to entertain, but also to educate. While he made it a point not to write with a moral in mind, some inevitable came through. Many were, as Dr. Seuss described himself, "subversive as hell."

    His first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, is about a young boy who invents an elaborate, ever-expansive tale while he is walking home from school. But when he arrives and his father asks what he saw, the boy responds with the dull truth -- he saw a horse and a wagon. The father responds with a frown about the boy's lack of imagination.

    In other books, Dr. Suess wrote about environmentalism in The Lorax, racial equality in The Sneetches, minority rights and the value of the individual in Horton Hears a Who, the arms race in The Butter Battle Book, and the commercialism of Christmas in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

    He also illustrated his books, using a style that included rounded, droppy figures, elaborate objects with few straight lines, and vivid images to show motion. 

    He died in 1991 at his home in San Diego, Calif.