GORE BAY—It was quite the celebration. The Grade 1/2 class at Charles C. McLean Public School in Gore Bay celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss last Friday. Theodor Seuss Geisel, who was born on March 2, 1904, was an American children’s author, political cartoonist and animator. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. His work includes many of the most popular children’s books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death in 1991.
“Dr. Seuss’ birthday was earlier in the month (March 2, 1904), but we celebrated later due to the Winter Fun Day celebrations held at the school,” said teacher Christa Flood. She explained, “the kids dressed as their favourite characters from his books, and decorated cakes and cupcakes that families sent in; the kids put the frosting and decorations on the cakes and cupcakes. Then the cakes were assembled in a crazy Seuss-like creation!”
“The students displayed the cakes and cupcakes to all the other classes (in the school) and then shared them in the afternoon,” said Ms. Flood. She added, “all the language and math activities for the day were centered on Seuss.”
Mr. Geisel adopted the name “Dr. Seuss” as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and as 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, most notably for 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 hiatus from children’s literature to illustrate political cartoons and he also worked in the animation and film department of the United States Army where he wrote, produced or animated many productions—both live-action and animated—including ‘Design for Death,’ which later won the 1947 Academy Award for best documentary feature.
After the war, Geisel returned to writing children’s books, penning classics like ‘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 published over 60 books during his career.
