Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss: The life and times of Dr.Seuss. ?The Cat in the Hat? takes you on an amazing journey about how Dr. Seuss became the greatest children?s author and illustrator. Dr. Seuss was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in the year, 1904. His father was a zoo volunteer. And as a small child, Dr. Seuss loved going to the zoo and then trying to draw the animals out of his own imagination. Even at a young age, he created fantastic creatures out of his own imagination. When he and his sister were young, Ted?s mother- that is what he was known as when he was little- Ted. Ted?s mother would put the children to sleep every night by chanting rhymes she remembered from when she was a child. Later on, Dr. Ted would credit this for developing his wonderful rhyming ability. Young Ted also loved the library. At the age of six he was reading to himself and drawing pictures in class with funny stories for all of his classmates. Most of Ted?s drawing ideas came from things and places around him. A stream in the park became ?The jungles of Nool?. A truck driven by Sylvester McMonkey McBean and a book about sneetches is a model of old tractors he saw as a child. Many of the characters? faces were taken from people he met in and around Springfield. When Ted went to college in Dartmouth, Springfield, he was a writer and editor for a hero magazine. He tried doing many things in college including wanting to become a college professor. However, his loves were art and writing! Dr. Seuss later toured Europe where he met Helen Palmer, a children?s book writer. They fell in love and were married. They worked together for many years. After they moved back to the United States, Dr. Seuss began drawing cartoons for magazines, and that is when he started signing his name as Dr. Seuss (so he would seem more professional). He was paid $75 per week, pretty good money in those days. His big break came when he began working in advertising, drawing ads for a bug spray called ?Flit?. He still wanted to write children?s books but no one would publish his work. The book, ?And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street? was rejected 27 times!! One day, he met a friend of his from college on the street. He was a publisher. He needed a book and Dr.Seuss needed a book published. They got together and the first book sold quickly- even at the price of $1 per book. He got his inspiration for the book, ?The 500 HATS of Bartholomew Cubbin? from a subway after he saw an old man wearing a hat. The book was a smashing success and this paved a way for him as a popular children?s writer. In 1949, he wrote ?Bartholomew and the Oobleck?, which won him a Caldecott honor award for his art work. In 1956, after years of struggling with the meaning of Christmas, Dr. Seuss wrote the classic, ?How the Grinch Stole Christmas?. This book took him a week to write except for the end. The end took him two and half months to get it just as he wanted it. This takes discipline, something that Dr. Seuss was known for. In 1957, he created?me! ?The Cat in the Hat?. This book revolutionized the way children?s books are written. The rhyming words and simple vocabulary made it a favorite among children. The great success of ?The Cat in the Hat? led to a whole series of books featuring ?me? on the cover. Some of the books are, ?Hop on Pop?, ?Fox in Socks?, ?One fish Two fish Red fish Blue fish? and the classic, ?Green Eggs and Ham?. Dr. Seuss was a perfectionist, and he revised and edited his work many times. At the height of his popularity, Dr. Seuss received around 2000 pieces of mail each week. He liked one letter in particular that was from a nine year-old fan who wrote and said that a book that Dr. Seuss had written was the ?funniest he had read in nine years?! Later in his life, Dr. Seuss won awards for his television cartoons, ?Horton Hears a Who!? and ?How the Grinch Stole Christmas!? His books have been published in 15 languages and over 200 million people have read his books. He always said that the creative process is made of two things: time and sweat. Therefore, with a little imagination and discipline, you too could become a ?Dr. Seuss?!