Biography
Creator of beloved characters such as The Grinch, The Lorax and The Cat In The Hat, Dr Seuss is a children’s author who revels in the weird and wonderful, delighting children with his rhyming tales.
Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904 in Massachusetts, into an American family of German descent. He attended Dartmouth College in 1925, and after graduating, he attended Lincoln College, Oxford, where he earned a doctorate in English Literature.
Geisel went on to work for magazines and advertising companies, and in 1931 he published his first book, an illustrated collection of children’s sayings. Despite its success, he failed to find any interest for his ABC book featuring his own whimsical creatures. During the Second World War, he worked for the government creating posters and films for the war effort.
After the war, he went back to writing children’s books. It was following an article about literacy that he found his signature style: focusing on only a handful of words young children should be able to read, The Cat In The Hat was published in 1957, with favourites such as Horton Hears A Who! and Green Eggs And Ham quickly following.
Full of whimsical, map-cap drawings, imaginative storylines, rhyming text and a simplified vocabulary, the books of Dr Seuss have entertained children for decades. Instilling a joy of the English language and the silliness of an imagination with no bounds, the books of Dr Seuss are perfect for young children to learn about the pleasures of reading.
