Here's to Dr. Seuss!

It's official--Dr. Seuss is immortal.

Although he died in 1991 at age 87, his heretofore unpublished book is being released this month, according to the current issue of American Profile (July 19-25, 2015, p. 6).

Yes, right there on America's bookshelves, alongside fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Harper Lee's much-anticipated Go Set a Watchman, will be Theodor Seuss Geisel's What Pet Should I Get? I can't decide which one I am the most anxious to get my hands on.

While Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird has been, up to now, the sole ticket to her widespread literary fame, Dr. Seuss's prolific collection of children's books has nurtured the imaginations of generations of children for nearly a century. Among them, I am proud to say, have been my little brother, my own children, and my grandkids.

On the occasion of his new book release nearly twenty-five years after his death, I offer him this poetic tribute, composed in the tradition of his own readily recognizable rhyme and metrical patterns. The poem is an acrostic, meaning that the first letters of each line, when read downward, spell out his name. I hope it will bring some great memories to mind as you anticipate with me the release of What Pet Should I Get?

A Salute to Dr. Seuss

The Cat in the Hat came when Mother was out.

He made our fish nervous and then made him shout.

Each Who down in Whoville remembers the day

Old Grinch came and kidnapped their Christmas away.

Do you like green eggs? Will you eat some green ham?

Oh, come on and try them--be like Sam I Am!

Remember The Foot Book and all of those feet

So distinctly unique as they walked down the street?

Elephants don't often roost in a tree

Unless Horton sits down where a bird ought to be.

Such genius poured from this pen and--oh boy--

Such a legacy left for us all to enjoy!

Geisel was great with the rhythm and rhyme.

Ev'ry kid with a book of his had a great time

Imagining characters, playing with sound

So ingrained in the words that this poet wrote down.

Each fun-loving reader, regardless of age,

Loves the way Doc could play with the words on a page.

"Fun That Is Funny"

Sooby knows what it means to have "Lots of good fun that is funny."  She learned this last week while taking a summer Kids' College course, "Dr. Seuss on the Loose," at our local community college.  For three hours every day, she and four other children ready to enter grades K-2 were immersed in that wonderful singsong world created by Theodor S. Geisel.

When I went to pick her up on the first day, she met me at the door wearing a tall red-striped, cat-inspired hat made from a paper plate rim stapled to a paper sack.  As I waited for her on another day, I pondered a chart posted outside the classroom door indicating how all the kids in the class preferred their eggs to be cooked.  Of course, everyone claimed to like green eggs and ham, but "scrambled" ranked a close second. 

Yet another day, she came home with green under her fingernails and a baggie containing a blob of homemade oobleck, that wonderful squishy substance that defies classification as either liquid or solid.  What child this age wouldn't have a field day with these ageless stories and these imaginative ancillary hands-on (or, in the case of the oobleck, hands-in) activities?

I know I would have if I'd had the chance.  However, Fun with Dick and Jane was really not that much fun, as I recall, and when I was Sooby's age, my reading repertoire consisted mainly of the traditional children's stories that usually involved three of something--bears, billy goats gruff, mittenless kittens, architecturally challenged little pigs, and so forth.  Then, there were those scary stories designed to send preschoolers straight into therapy with their giants ("Fee-fi-fo-FUM!"), big bad wolves ("Grandma, what a big MOUTH you have!"), and witches (Never, EVER trust a trail of bread crumbs.).

As a former teacher, I can't help thinking what it might have been like to take a class based on, say, "The Three Little Pigs."  Let's see, now.  On the first day we would build our cast of characters.  We would mold our little pigs out of balls of pink clay and Elmer's-glue squiggly eyes and felt ears on one of our dads' old brown socks to make a wolf hand puppet.

On Days 2, 3, and 4 we would construct little houses out of straw (which would not only be very difficult to stack but would also make us sneeze), twigs (for which we might substitute flat-sided toothpicks if we wanted something that looked a little less like a bird's nest), and Lego bricks (Did those exist then?  Hmm, I may have to google that--but I do remember playing with a set of plastic Lego precursors that came in a round box with a metal lid like Tinker Toys and went by the name "Block City."). 

Then, on each of those days we would use the hand wearing our sock-puppet wolves to grasp a little battery-powered personal fan to imitate the huffing and puffing needed to demolish all houses except the ones built with Block City bricks.  By now, there would most certainly be a point made, and we would all know what it was.  Unfortunately, right now I don't-- but let me see this thing through anyway.   

On the final day, for the grand finale, we would heat a kettle of water to the boiling point (taking advantage of this teachable moment to introduce the word "Fahrenheit" and learn first-aid for burns) and throw our wolf puppets in to drive home the point (which we will believe until we are disillusioned as teenagers) that good always triumphs and evil gets its just desserts.  On a more practical and less theoretical note, the boiling water will also melt off the glue, whereupon we can return the socks, clean, to our dads' bureau drawers before Sunday comes around and they need them for church.

Nope, I have to admit, this is not a scenario that would have worked in 1957 when I was the age Sooby is now.  I remember my own early grades as being pretty traditional and pretty structured.  If you ask me, we could have used a little more "fun that [was] funny," and I'm glad, thanks to "Dr. Seuss on the Loose," that Sooby got to have just that.


 

The Sheep in the Jeep

Sooby is into rhyming.  She loves for me to give her a word and ask her to come up with another word that rhymes with it.  It comes as no surprise, then, that last night, the bedtime story of choice was Dr. Seuss's beloved The Cat in the Hat.  When it comes to rhyme that wraps itself around an imaginative story line and tickles the ear of the typical preschooler, no one does it like Dr. Seuss.

However, in that precious interval of time that stretches itself between the reading and the tucking in, we took time to contemplate various other animals that Dr. Seuss might have chosen to write about instead of the mischievous cat in the red-and-white-striped stovepipe hat.  A goat in a coat?  Nah.  A pig in a wig?  We didn't think so.  A duck in a truck?  No, none of those seemed to be likely candidates.  But a sheep in a jeep?  In that one we saw potential.  It might go something like this:

        The Sheep in the Jeep

Since Mom wouldn't be home
'Til quarter past two,
Sally and I couldn't
Think what to do.

Then from the front door
We heard, "Beep, beep, beep!"
Until, crashing right through,
Came a sheep in a jeep!

How he splintered the wood
When he tore through the door!
How the tracks of his tires
Left black lines on the floor!

The motor would groan;
The transmission would whir,
And he left the room littered
With tufts of his fur.

He zoomed through the room.
He drove right up the couch,
Hit the floor upside down;
Then, that sheep bleated, "Ouch!"

He careened down the hallway,
And bounced off the walls;
Turned the sink in the bath
To Niagara Falls!

He drove up the curtain
And smudged up the glass.
Then he belched and the scent
Of his breath smelled like grass.

I hollered, "Whoa, you!"
And Sally said, "Hey!"
And our fish drew a deep breath,
Then fainted away.

Our fish was afraid
That our mom would take fright
When she looked at the mess
The sheep made in one night.

But this sheep was a smart one.
He carried in back
Of his jeep a big box.
In the box was a sack.

In the sack was a paintbrush
And putty and paste.
He put things back together
In admirable haste.

He laundered the curtains.
He ironed the lace.
He put all the stuff
He messed up back in place.

So all appeared normal
As Mom neared the door:
No sign of the jeep
And no fleece on the floor,

Not a thing out of place,
Not an object he broke,
And just at the right time
Our fishy awoke.

When Mom asked what kind
Of a time we had had,
I winked right at Sally
And said, "Not too b-a-a-a-d."

            Epilogue

Tho' The Cat in the Hat
Surely no one can equal--
The Sheep in the Jeep
Makes a good enough sequel!