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Yesterday was Read Across America Day and the day schools celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday… and I had such a fabulous day! I had the opportunity to visit Mineral Springs Elementary School and share Being Frank with Pre-K through 2nd grade students! Big thanks to Jerry Ethridge for the pics below! Filed under: writing for children […]

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Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss.  Happy Read Across America Day to everyone!  Happy birthday, childhood's favorite Muse!  A man of myth, and words, and wonder, and fun!

From @gallerynuclus by way of justpicturethis.tumblr.com

OK!  From Fuse#8 Productions we have a the results of Elizabeth Bird's  Re-Seussfication Project.  She challenged illustrators to re-illustrate a Seuss classic in the style of another illustrator, honoring both - I hope. I particularly like the last illustration. 

Jarrett Krosoczka re-seussified The Cat in the Hat in Bernard Waber style.  This is NOT the last illustration referred to above.

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What better way to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday than reading to a child? March 2nd is Read Across America Day. Now in its 15th year, this year-round program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources. NEA’s national reading celebration takes place each year on or near March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss and the 2012 theme is green with the debut of NBC/ Universal's The Lorax. But Random House and the National Education Association aren't the only ones urging you to participate and read to a child.

Sylvan Dell Publishing will be participating in Read Across America Day by offering all of its award-winning eBooks FREE to read at www.sylvandellpublishing.com on March 2.  Participants will have access to Sylvan Dell’s full eBook Site License including eBooks with auto-flip, auto-read, and selectable English and Spanish text and audio. This is in addition to the free activities available every day including a “For Creative Minds” educational section, 40-70 pages of free teaching activities, three quizzes, and a related websites page for each title.

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The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

Happy birthday to Dr. Seuss, from all your friends at First Book!

What did YOU do to celebrate Read Across America Day?

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You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go.

Today is Read Across America Day

– the birthday of Dr. Seuss. We love Dr. Seuss, and we know you all love him too. (In fact, we can prove it scientifically.)

Here are some other ways you can celebrate:

• First Book was proud to work with the NEA to get books into the hands of teachers and program administrators in time to help their kids celebrate Read Across America Day. Visit their website to learn more.
• Our friends at Reading Rockets put together a Green Eggs & Ham literacy bag – a printable resource designed to encourage hands-on fun and learning centered around paired fiction and nonfiction books. There’s other fun stuff on their website, including video and e-cards.
• Random House has a great page on their ‘Seussville’ website with reading guides for students and families, a list of national events, and more

Let us know what you’re doing to celebrate Read Across America Day!

 

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On this day in 1904 Theodor Seuss Geisel came into the world. In honor of his birthday I would like to share a profile of this great man with you:

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ted's father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were brewmasters in the city. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. Ted credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known.

Although the Geisels enjoyed great financial success for many years, the onset of World War I and Prohibition presented both financial and social challenges for the German immigrants. Nonetheless, the family persevered and again prospered, providing Ted and his sister, Marnie, with happy childhoods.

The influence of Ted's memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work. Drawings of Horton the Elephant meandering along streams in the Jungle of Nool, for example, mirror the watercourses in Springfield's Forest Park from the period. The fanciful truck driven by Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches could well be the Knox tractor that young Ted saw on the streets of Springfield. In addition to its name, Ted's first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, is filled with Springfield imagery, including a look-alike of Mayor Fordis Parker on the reviewing stand, and police officers riding red motorcycles, the traditional color of Springfield's famed Indian Motocycles.

Ted left Springfield as a teenager to attend Dartmouth College, where he became editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine. Although his tenure as editor ended prematurely when Ted and his friends were caught throwing a drinking party, which was against the prohibition laws and school policy, he continued to contribute to the magazine, signing his work "Seuss." This is the first record of the "Seuss" pseudonym, which was both Ted's middle name and his mother's maiden name.

To please his father, who wanted him to be a college professor, Ted went on to Oxford University in England after graduation. However, his academic studies bored him, and he decided to tour Europe instead. Oxford did provide him the opportunity to meet a classmate, Helen Palmer, who not only became his first wife, but also a children's author and book editor.

After returning to the United States, Ted began to pursue a career as a cartoonist. The Saturday Evening Post and other publications published some of his early pieces, but the bulk of Ted's activity during his early career was devoted to creating advertising campaigns for Standard Oil, which he did for more than 15 years.

As World War II approached, Ted's focus shifted, and he began contributing weekly political cartoons to PM magazine, a liberal publication. Too old for the draft, but wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ted served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps (U.S. Army) making training movies. It was here that he was introduced to the art of animation and developed a series of animated training films featuring a trainee called Private Snafu.

While Ted was continuing to contribute to Life, Vanity Fair, Judge and other magazines, Viking Press offered him a contract to illustrate a collection of children's

Aaron Mead said, on 3/4/2010 2:17:00 PM

I think Dr. Seuss books are excellent BOTH because they are appealing to children (humor, rhymes, illustrations, wild characters and action, etc.), AND because they help kids develop.

The books have controlled vocabularies, and this allows young readers to grow in their ability to read. The books are also highly creative, developing in children a taste for creativity that will serve them well when they choose books later in life. And, as you say, they also communicate many worthwhile messages (Green Eggs and Ham: “Try it, you might like it!”; The Grinch: “Christmas is not centrally about presents”; The Lorax: “Care for the environment!”), which shape the character of children in positive ways.

It’s this combination of subjective appeal and developmental value that sets Seuss’s books apart, in my view. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

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