Dr. Seuss: Sneeches, Whos and Butter Battles
By Leandra
Carmone
Age
10
Theodor Geisel was born in
Springfield, Mass., on March 2, 1904. As a young boy, he drew many pictures that
made him and his sister laugh. He would always give them weird names such as
“Sneech.”
Geisel continued to doodle even in college!
He went to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. There he set a goal to
be a professor. Soon he started to draw for the college
magazine.
Geisel began looking for a
job in the U. S. He earned money buy drawing cartoons and selling his drawings
for advertisements in
newspapers.
Giesel didn’t want to
continue to draw for advertisement. He wanted to do something else. But at the
time the U. S. was in the middle of the Depression and millions of people were
out of work. He barely had enough money to
eat.
He first wrote an alphabet book
but many publishers rejected it. Geisel was discouraged and didn’t write
another book for 7 years!
Geisel wrote
another book called, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street”
and every publisher rejected it. Finally, in 1937, a friend published this book
and that was the first time Geisel used the name Dr. Seuss. Seuss was his
mother’s last name before she got married.
His publisher sent a list of 400 words
that were important to beginning readers to Dr. Seuss. Seuss cut the list down
to 250 words because he felt that first grade readers could only handle that
many words in a book.
Dr. Seuss figured
out he needed to rhyme, so he wrote “The Cat in the Hat’ in 1957. He
and Helen created beginners books at Random House Publishing in 1958.
“Green Eggs and Ham” is a book about a creature that doesn’t
want to eat green eggs and ham. It was published in 1960 and Geisel only used 50
words. Dr. Seuss won the bet when he was challenged that he couldn’t
create a book only using 50 words.
“Horton Hatches an Egg”
was Seuss’ favorite book. He visited Hiroshima, Japan during World War II
and was inspired to write,”Horton Hears a Who.” This war killed many
people and this special book was about how important every life
is.
Dr. Seuss wrote yet another called
“Butter Battle Book” about the Zooks and the Yooks, who eat their
bread, buttered different ways. This teaches all of us how silly it is when we
fight.
Seuss continued to write
children’s books but got tired and needed to take a break. Soon after, he
died on September 24, 1991 at his home in California.
Today, children all over the world
read his books as beginning readers because his literature has been translated
into many languages. Even after he passed away, Dr. Seuss had another success!
The recent release of the “Cat in the Hat Movie,” proves he’ll
live forever in our hearts.
Posted: Thu - January 1, 2004 at 06:51 PM