Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss (for Adults)!

Tomorrow, March 2, 2013, marks the 109th (!!) anniversary of the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss). While children everywhere are celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday at library programs and school events, adults can revisit their Dr. Seuss days with one of his picture books from our collection (maybe The Lorax, Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, or whatever your childhood favorite happens to be)! If you feel a little silly reading a picture book, you can choose from a variety of our books from our adult collection to partake in remembering Dr. Seuss. From biographies to critical interpretation to art appreciation, our collection offers a wonderful variety of titles from which to choose. To discover a sample of our holdings, just take a look at the five books listed below:

Dr. Seuss: American Icon by Philip Nel.
Published in time for the centenary of Seuss's birth in March 2004, this book celebrates one of the most influential authors and artists of the 20th century: Theodor Seuss Geisel, best known as "Dr. Seuss." Does the author, Philip Nel, look familiar? He also provided the annotations for The Annotated Cat: Under the Hat of Seuss and His Cats.

Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel by Richard H. Minear with an introduction by Art Spiegelman.
For decades, readers throughout the world have enjoyed the marvelous stories and illustrations of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. But few know Geisel's work as a political cartoonist during World War II for the New York daily newspaper PM. In these marvelously trenchant cartoons, Geisel captured the Zeitgeist--especially the attitudes of the New Deal liberals who read PM--with a wonderful Seussian flair. Dr. Seuss Goes to War features handsome, large-format reproductions of more than two hundred of Geisel's cartoons from this time.

The Parables of Dr. Seuss by Robert L. Short.
This breezy and engaging book will delight the Dr. Seuss fan in all of us. Robert Short looks at spirituality in the stories of children's book author and illustrator Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, arguing that Geisel was "a first-class Christian thinker." The book explores Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and others. Short writes in the introduction, "When I first became acquainted with his books and was struck by the many parallels I saw between his work and what is said in the Bible and by Christian faith, I considered these similarities to be merely 'happy accidents.' Today I still see these parallels as 'happy,' but I'm now convinced that they are not merely 'accidents.'"

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss by Theodor Seuss Geisel with an introduction by Maurice Sendak.
These fabulous, whimsical paintings, created for his own pleasure and never shown to the public, show Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) in a whole new light. Depicting outlandish creatures in otherworldly settings, the paintings use a dazzling rainbow of hues not seen in the primary-color palette of his books for children, and exhibit a sophisticated and often quite unrestrained side of the artist. 65 color illustrations.

Theodor SEUSS Geisel by Donald E. Pease.
Dr. Seuss's infectious rhymes, fanciful creatures, and roundabout plots not only changed the way children read but imagined the world. And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat and the Hat, these and other classics have sold hundreds of millions of copies and entertained children and adults for decades. After graduating from Dartmouth, Theodor Geisel used his talents as an ad-man, political provocateur, and social satirist, gradually but irrevocably turning to children's books. Theodor SEUSS Geisel tells the unlikely story of this remarkable transformation. In this compact and engrossing biography, Donald Pease reveals the evolution of Dr. Seuss's creative persona while offering an honest appraisal of his life. The book also features many of Dr. Seuss's lesser-known illustrations, including college drawings, insecticide ads, and wartime political cartoons-all of which offer a glimpse of his early artistic style and the visual origins of the more famous creatures that later populated his children's books. As Pease traces the full arc of Dr. Seuss's prolific career, he combines close textual readings of many of Dr. Seuss's works with a unique look at their genesis to shed new light on the enduring legacy of America's favorite children's book author.

- Anna V.

Photo courtesy of Sharon Drummond