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Dr. Seuss was dead, but his widow had discovered one last manuscript. Ten years later, Seuss's sketches for its illustrations were finally expanded to create a complete story. The book is dedicated by his widow "to the ongoing presence of Theodor S. Geisel...Dr. Seuss." And in "Daisy-head Mayzie", the narrator is even represented by the ultimate Seuss symbol - the Cat in the Hat!

Remember the little girl whose house was visited by the Cat in the Hat? Mayzie looks a little bit like her! She's got blonde hair and round innocent eyes - but one day at school, "something peculiar was going on." On the top of her head, she'd suddenly sprouted a daisy! And it befuddles even the adults, including Mayzie's teacher.

I love how the characters have names that sound like Seuss-ical rhymes. The daisy's confirmed by Einstein Van Tass ("the brightest young man in the whole of the class.") The girl's teacher is "Miss Sneetcher," and she whisks Mayzie to the Principal's office. And the Principal's name is "good Gregory Grumm...a very wise man, just as smart as they come."

But most of all there's funny drawings. Mayzie's mom is a welder - she's first seen wearing a blowtorch mask - while Mayzie's father (with a dapper moustache) works as a shoe salesman. Dr. Eisenbart looks like your classic cartoon quack, with a bald head and tufts of hair sticking up under a stethoscope. And Mayzie's super-intelligent Principal sits under an enormous arch of school books, staring at the flower through a three-lensed magnifying glass.

The drawings seem even more playful with Seuss's rhymes about the misplaced daisy. "I've seen them quite often in fields growing wild. But never before on the head of a child." The daisy gets bigger, and soon a scheme hatches in the mind of Dr. Eisenbart. "I think that Mayzie and her plant / Could help me get a research grant."

Dr. Seuss seems to be hiding a subversive message in his book. Yes, there's a daisy on the girl's head - but the grown-ups all have their own agenda. Soon the mayor has converted Mayzie's flower into a campaign issue. A Hollywood agent named Finagle appears, offering Mayzie his business card. Eventually her miracle is being commercialized, with "Daisy-head burgers and Daisy-head drinks, Daisy-head stocking and Daisy-head sinks."

But Dr. Seuss has one last twist in the story, since Mayzie believes that she's lost all her friends. She sits in despair, convinced nobody loves her. And soon all the petals of her flower start dropping off one by one. Why? Dr. Seuss explains in a rhyme.

"[Y]ou know about daisies. When love is in doubt, The job of a daisy is Try and Find Out!"

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