by Ian Farquharson

Created on: July 03, 2010

Most people in the western world have heard of Dr. Seuss through the many children’s books he wrote during his career. Many of these have gained iconic status and are loved by kids all over the world. His fame has grown in recent years as the movie world caught on to the joy of his books and turned these into successful films. This has included some of his best works with a live action movie being made of the Cat in the Hat, starring Mike Myers as the cat, a cartoon version made of Horton Hears a Who, with Horton the elephant being voiced by Jim Carrey and a live action version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas being made with Jim Carrey playing the Grinch. Dr. Seuss had an extremely successful career and here are some facts about the man and his works.

Although Seuss sounds a little made up it was in fact Dr. Seuss’s middle name. The full name he was given at birth was Theodor Seuss Geisel. Seuss came from his mother’s side of the family and was actually her maiden name.

Although Dr. Seuss is the pen name for which he is most famous he did write books under other names during his career. On one occasion he used Rosetta Stone and on others he used Theo LeSieg.

The use of the pen name Dr. Seuss began early in his career. In his youth he attended Dartmouth College and while there he and nine others were caught drinking gin in their room. This was during the time of Prohibition and as punishment he was made to resign from all extra curricular activities. However to get around this so that he could keep working for the college humor magazine he started signing his work as Seuss. After graduation he began work for a humor magazine called The Judge and it was while working for this that he added the Dr. and Dr. Seuss was born.

During his long career, Dr. Seuss published more than 60 books. In addition to those named in the introduction above, some of the others for which he is best known include Green Eggs and Ham, Oh the Places You’ll Go and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

Green Eggs and Ham reputedly came about as the result of a bet with his editor, Bennett Cerf that he couldn’t write a book using only 50 different words or less. By writing Green Eggs and Ham he proved that he could. The book uses exactly 50 words.

Dr. Seuss was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and the city celebrated one of their favorite sons by opening the Dr. Seuss National Memorial. This is a sculpture garden located at the Quadrangle in the city and

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