Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American children's author and author. The author. He is known for writing and illustrating over 60 books under the name Dr. Seuss (/suːs, zuːs/ sooss, zooss).His work is among the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and at the time of his death. Translated into more than 20 languages.
Giselle adopted the name "Dr. Seuss" as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and a graduate student at Lincoln College, Oxford. He left Oxford in 1927 to begin his career as an illustrator and cartoonist for Vanity Fair, Life and various other publications. He also worked as an illustrator for advertising campaigns including FLIT and Standard Oil, and as a political cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM. He published his first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, in 1937. During World War II, he took a brief break from children's literature to illustrate political cartoons, and he worked in the United States Department of Animation and Film. the army
After the war, Geisel returned to writing children's books, writing acclaimed works such as If I Run the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1955), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960), The Snitches and Other Stories (1961), The Lorax (1971), The Butter Battle Book (1984), And oh, where you'll go! (1990). He published more than 60 books during his career, which spawned numerous adaptations, including eleven television specials, five feature films, a Broadway musical, and four television series.
He received two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program for Halloween Is Grinch Night (1978) and The Grinch Grinch's The Cat in the Hat (1982). In 1984, he won a Pulitzer Prize for Special Citation. His birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative focused on reading created by the National Education Association.
Life and career
Geisel was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of Henrietta (née Seuss) and Theodore Robert Geisel. His father operated the family brewery and later Mayor John A. Appointed by Dennison to oversee Springfield's public park system after Prohibition closed the brewery. Mulberry Street in Springfield, made famous in his first children's book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, is his childhood home on Fairfield Street. is near The family was of German descent, and after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Giselle and her sister Marnie experienced anti-German prejudice from other children. Giselle was raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran and remained in the denomination throughout her life.
Geisel attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1925. At Dartmouth, he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, eventually rising to the position of editor-in-chief. While at Dartmouth, he was caught drinking gin with nine friends in his room. At the time, possession and consumption of alcohol was illegal under the Prohibition Act, which was in place between 1920 and 1933. As a result of this violation, Dean Craven Laycock insisted that Giselle resign from all extracurricular activities, including Jack-O's. the lantern In order to continue working at the magazine without the management's knowledge, Giselle began signing her work with the pen name "Seuss". He was encouraged in his writing by W. Benfield Pressey, whom he described as his "great inspiration for writing", at Dartmouth.
After graduating from Dartmouth, he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) in English Literature. At Oxford, he met his future wife, Helen Palmer, who encouraged him to pursue drawing as a career. Encouraged to give up becoming an English teacher in favor of pursuing He later recalled that "Ted's notebooks were always filled with these fantastic creatures. So I set to work to remove him; here was a man who could draw pictures like that; he should earn a living doing it."
World War II era work
Duration: 4 minutes and 17 seconds. 4:17 subtitles available.CC
"The Goldbrick", a personal snafu episode written by Giselle, 1943
When World War II broke out, Geisel turned to political cartoons, producing more than 400 drawings in two years as an editorial cartoonist for PM, a left-leaning New York City daily newspaper. Geisel's political cartoons, later published in Dr. Seuss Goes to War, denounced Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and were highly critical of non-interventionists ("isolationists"), such as Charles Lindbergh, who opposed US entry into the war. One cartoon was handed to TNT by Japanese Americans expecting a "signal from home", while other cartoons condemned racism at home against Jews and blacks harming the war effort. His cartoons strongly supported President Roosevelt's handling of the war, combining the usual advice on rationing and contributing to the war effort with frequent attacks on Congress (especially the Republican Party), parts of the press (such as the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Washington Times-Herald), and others for criticizing Roosevelt, criticizing aid to the Soviet Union, investigating suspected communists, and other crimes he committed, whether intentionally or inadvertently, leading to disunity and the Nazis. Illustrated to help.
In 1942, Geisel turned his energies to direct support of the US war effort. At first he worked as a poster artist for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board. Then, in 1943, he joined the Army as a captain and was commander of the animation division of the United States Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit, where he wrote films including Your Job in Germany, a 1945 propaganda film about peace. In Europe after World War II; Personal Snafu series of movies about our jobs and adult army training in Japan. While in the Army, he was awarded the Legion of Merit. Our Job in Japan became the basis for the commercially released film Design for Death (1947), a study of Japanese culture that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) was based on an original story by Seuss and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
After the war, Geisel and his wife moved to the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, where he returned to writing children's books. He published most of his books through Random House in North America and William Collins, Sons (later HarperCollins) internationally. He wrote many, including such favorites as If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), and Green Eggs and Ham (1960). He received numerous awards throughout his career, but he won neither the Caldecott Medal nor the Newbery Medal. Three of his titles from this period were, however, chosen as Caldecott runners-up (now referred to as Caldecott Honor books): McElligot's Pool (1947), Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1949), and If I Ran the Zoo (1950). Dr. Seuss also wrote the musical and fantasy film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., which was released in 1953. The movie was a critical and financial failure, and Geisel never attempted another feature film.citation needed During the 1950s, he also published a number of illustrated short stories, mostly in Redbook magazine. Some of these were later collected (in volumes such as The Sneetches and Other Stories) or reworked into independent books (If I Ran the Zoo). A number have never been reprinted since their original appearances.
In May 1954, Life published a report on illiteracy among school children which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. William Ellsworth Spaulding was the director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin (he later became its chairman), and he compiled a list of 348 words that he felt were important for first-graders to recognize. He asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and to write a book using only those words. Spaulding challenged Geisel to "bring back a book children can't put down. Nine months later, Geisel completed The Cat in the Hat, using 236 of the words given to him. It retained the drawing style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Geisel's earlier works but, because of its simplified vocabulary, it could be read by beginning readers. The Cat in the Hat and subsequent books written for young children achieved significant international success and they remain very popular today. For example, in 2009, Green Eggs and Ham sold 540,000 copies, The Cat in the Hat sold 452,000 copies, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960) sold 409,000 copies—all outselling the majority of newly published children's books.
Geisel went on to write many other children's books, both in his new simplified-vocabulary manner (sold as Beginner Books) and in his older, more elaborate style.
In 1955, Dartmouth awarded Geisel an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters, with the citation:
Creator and fancier of fanciful beasts, your affinity for flying elephants and man-eating mosquitoes makes us rejoice you were not around to be Director of Admissions on Mr. Noah's ark. But our rejoicing in your career is far more positive: as author and artist you singlehandedly have stood as St. George between a generation of exhausted parents and the demon dragon of unexhausted children on a rainy day. There was an inimitable wriggle in your work long before you became a producer of motion pictures and animated cartoons and, as always with the best of humor, behind the fun there has been intelligence, kindness, and a feel for humankind. An Academy Award winner and holder of the Legion of Merit for war film work, you have stood these many years in the academic shadow of your learned friend Dr. Seuss; and because we are sure the time has come when the good doctor would want you to walk by his side as a full equal and because your College delights to acknowledge the distinction of a loyal son, Dartmouth confers on you her Doctorate of Humane Letters.
Geisel joked that he would now have to sign "Dr. Dr. Seuss". His wife was ill at the time, so he delayed accepting it until June 1956.
Geisel's wife Helen had a long struggle with illnesses. On October 23, 1967, Helen died by suicide. Eight months later, on June 21, 1968, Geisel married Audrey Dimond with whom he had reportedly been having an affair. Although he devoted most of his life to writing children's books, Geisel had no children of his own, saying of children: "You have 'em; I'll entertain 'em. Audrey added that Geisel "lived his whole life without children and he was very happy without children. Audrey oversaw Geisel's estate until her death on December 19, 2018, at the age of 97.
Giselle's most famous pen name is regularly pronounced /suːs/, an English pronunciation of her German name (standard German pronunciation is German pronunciation: ˈzɔʏ̯s). He himself notes that it rhymes with "voice" (his own pronunciation is /sɔɪs/). Alexander Laing, one of his collaborators at the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, wrote about it:
Pen name
You are mistaken as Douce
And you should not rejoice
If you call him Seuss.
He pronounced it Soice (or Zoice).
In his children's book
Giselle made a point not to start writing her stories with a moral in mind, saying that "kids can spot a moral coming a mile away." He was not, however, averse to writing about the subject; He stated that "any story has an inherent moral, and commented that he was "destructive as hell".
Geisel's books express his views on various social and political issues: The Lorax (1971), environmentalism and anti-consumerism; The Sneetches (1961), about racial equality; The Butter Battle Book (1984), about the arms race; Yertle the Turtle (1958), Adolf Hitler and anti-authoritarianism; How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), criticizes the economic materialism and consumerism of the Christmas season; And who listens to Horton! (1954), on anti-isolationism and internationalism.
Retired book
Seuss' works for children have been criticized for unconscious racist themes. Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which owns the rights to books, films, TV shows, stage productions, exhibitions, digital media, licensed merchandise and other strategic partnerships, announced on March 2, 2021 that it will cease publishing and licensing. Six books. Publications include And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937), If I Ran the Zoo (1950), McElligot's Pool (1947), On Beyond Zebra! (1955), Scrambled Eggs Super! (1953) and The Cat's Quizzer (1976). According to the organization, the books "portray people in ways that are hurtful and inaccurate" and are no longer being published.
Poetic meter
Geisel wrote most of his books in anapaestic tetrameter, a poetic meter employed by many poets in the canon of English literature. This is often suggested as a reason why Giselle's writings were so well received.
Geisel's early artwork often employed the shaded texture of pencil drawings or watercolors, but in his children's books of the postwar period, he generally made use of a starker medium—pen and ink—normally using just black, white, and one or two colors. His later books, such as The Lorax, used more colors.
Geisel's style was unique—his figures are often "rounded" and somewhat droopy. This is true, for instance, of the faces of the Grinch and the Cat in the Hat. Almost all his buildings and machinery were devoid of straight lines when they were drawn, even when he was representing real objects. For example, If I Ran the Circus shows a droopy hoisting crane and a droopy steam calliope.
Geisel evidently enjoyed drawing architecturally elaborate objects, and a number of his motifs are identifiable with structures in his childhood home of Springfield, including examples such as the onion domes of its Main Street and his family's brewery. His endlessly varied but never rectilinear palaces, ramps, platforms, and free-standing stairways are among his most evocative creations. Geisel also drew complex imaginary machines, such as the Audio-Telly-O-Tally-O-Count, from Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, or the "most peculiar machine" of Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches. Geisel also liked drawing outlandish arrangements of feathers or fur: for example, the 500th hat of Bartholomew Cubbins, the tail of Gertrude McFuzz, and the pet for girls who like to brush and comb, in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.
Geisel's illustrations often convey motion vividly. He was fond of a sort of "voilà" gesture in which the hand flips outward and the fingers spread slightly backward with the thumb up. This motion is done by Ish in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish when he creates fish (who perform the gesture with their fins), in the introduction of the various acts of If I Ran the Circus, and in the introduction of the "Little Cats" in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. He was also fond of drawing hands with interlocked fingers, making it look as though his characters were twiddling their thumbs.
Geisel also follows the cartoon tradition of showing motion with lines, like in the sweeping lines that accompany Sneelock's final dive in If I Ran the Circus. Cartoon lines are also used to illustrate the action of the senses—sight, smell, and hearing—in The Big Brag, and lines even illustrate "thought", as in the moment when the Grinch conceives his awful plan to ruin Christmas
Geisel wrote more than 60 books over the course of his long career. Most were published under his well-known pseudonym Dr. Seuss, though he also authored more than a dozen books as Theo LeSieg and one as Rosetta Stone. His books have topped many bestseller lists, sold over 600 million copies, and been translated into more than 20 languages. In 2000, Publishers Weekly compiled a list of the best-selling children's books of all time; of the top 100 hardcover books, 16 were written by Geisel, including Green Eggs and Ham, at number 4, The Cat in the Hat, at number 9, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, at number 13. In the years after his death in 1991, two additional books were published based on his sketches and notes: Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! and Daisy-Head Mayzie. My Many Colored Days was originally written in 1973 but was posthumously published in 1996. In September 2011, seven stories originally published in magazines during the 1950s were released in a collection titled The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories.
Selected titles
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937)
Horton Hatches the Egg (1940)
Horton Hears a Who! (1954)
The Cat in the Hat (1957)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957)
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (1958)
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1960)
Green Eggs and Ham (1960)
The Sneetches and Other Stories (1961)
Hop on Pop (1963)
Fox in Socks (1965)
The Lorax (1971)
The Butter Battle Book (1981)
I Am Not Going to Get Up Today! (1987)
Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
For the books Geisel wrote and others illustrated, he used the pen name "Theo Lessig", starting with I Wish That I Had Doc Feet, published in 1965. Geisel also wrote Rosetta Stone, 1975's Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!! Published a book called, which Michael K. In collaboration with Frith. Frith and Giselle chose the name in honor of Giselle's second wife, Audrey, whose maiden name was Stone.
Giselle switched to the Anglicized pronunciation because it "created a convenient image for the children's book author—Mother Goose" and most people use this pronunciation. He added "Dr. (abbreviated Dr.)" to his pen name because his father always wanted him to practice medicine.
