Dr. Seuss' books are bright and colourful. They are great fun to read and perfect for kids, with their rhymes and pace. Even though Dr. Seuss' books are mainly aimed at children, there are lessons in some of them that everyone, including adults, could benefit from.

My favourite lesson of these is from the book "The Sneetches", which is all about discrimination. In the book, there are star-bellied sneetches, and sneetches with no stars on their bellies. The sneeches with stars always discriminate against the sneeches with no stars and feel that they are superior to them and better in every way, just because they have stars. Someone called Sylvester McMonkey McBean comes to the town and has a machine that allows the plain sneetches to go through it and come out with a star. The sneetches with stars on them don't like this at all. Then Sylvester McMonkey McBean makes a machine that takes stars off. So all the sneetches that had stars, now don't, and all the sneetches that were plain, now have stars, so they can tell the difference.

Things get out of hand when the sneetches keep going through these machines until none of them can tell which sneetch had a star to begin with and which one didn't. They do this until they are all poor and Sylvester McMonkey McBean leaves town. At the end of it, they realise that sneetches with stars are no different to sneetches without stars and they they are all equal. They start to get along and become friends.

This book was inspired by Dr. Seuss' opposition to antisemitism, but can be applied to anything I think. Just because some sneetches had stars, doesn't mean they were better than the ones without. Just because some people have a certain religion, skin colour, gender or sexual orientation doesn't mean that they are better or worse than others. All sneetches are equal!

Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter

Seussville!

A very good source of information and fun and games is Seussville.com. It has a very interesting biography of Dr. Seuss that is easy to read but also very enjoyable.


There's loads of information there as well as games and activities that you can do. It's very animated and bright, just like Dr. Seuss' books. Take a look!

The Lorax

Here is a video of the original The Lorax animation. It's now been made into a major motion picture starring Zac Efron and Taylor Swift.

Video from Google videos

Quotes

These are my top 10 Dr. Seuss quotes.


1) Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

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

3) Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You

4) Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered

5) I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living

6) You oughta be thankful A whole heaping lot For the people and places You're lucky you're not.
7) Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!

8) And the turtles of course - all turtles are freeAs turtles, and maybe, all creatures should be

9) Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

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

Movies

Some of Dr. Seuss' books have been made into major motion pictures, like How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who as well The Lorax, that was released on the 2nd March 2012, Dr Seuss' 108th birthday.

The movies are always very colourful with a great sense of humour and of course a few rhymes. The characters are very witty and there is always a subtle life lesson included.

The movies have very memorable quotes; like Horton's "A person's a person, no matter how small!" or the Grinch's "Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...means a little bit more." and The Lorax's "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not."

Dr. Seuss movies are always worth a watch!

Facts

Here's some facts about Dr. Seuss to get us started.

(1) Seuss is supposed to be pronounced like it rhymes with "voice", but after everyone started pronouncing it like it rhymes with "goose" the pronounciation was changed. Alexander Liang said this about him, "You’re wrong as the deuce And you shouldn’t rejoice If you’re calling him Seuss. He pronounces it Soice."

(2) His publisher bet him $50 that he could not write a book using only 50 words. He won this bet by writing Green Eggs and Ham that uses exactly 50 words.

(3) His pen-names included "Theo LeSieg" (LeSieg is Geisel backwards), Dr. Seuss and in one case, Rosetta Stone.

(4) Even though Dr. Seuss wrote children's books, he wasn't fan of kids himself and he didn't have any. He said "You raise them, I'll entertain them."

(5) He was born on March 2, 1904 and died September 24, 1991 (aged 87)

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!

picture source: http://itthing.com/all-about-dr-seuss

Introduction

Hi, my name is Heidi and this is my blog about Dr. Seuss (Full name: Theodor Seuss Geisel), who I am a big big fan of. He was a writer, poet and cartoonist of children's books. I'll be updating once a week and I hope you enjoy reading!

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” ― Dr. Seuss

Picture source: http://www.kidactivities.net/category/Theme-Dr-Seuss.aspx