yip yip yippee yay

he even had his own stamp!

It’s Dr. Seuss’s birthday!


We all know his books, but how much do we actually know about the man? Here are a few facts I dug up on one of my favorite author…

* He came from a family of German brewmasters, which is probably why he loved to throw a big party in his Dartmouth days.

* His widow says he wasn’t crazy about kiddos, but they wanted them and couldn’t have them. He made up a fake child to reference when his friends bragged about their own kids.

* He wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a bet! His editor bet him $50 that he couldn’t write a book using only 50 different words.

* He’s an Oscar winner! He won an Academy Award for a documentary called Design for Death, about the US occupation in Japan after World War II.

* Horton Hears a Who was written as an allegory for America’s treatment of the Japanese following World War II. (he must have loved the Japanese like I do!)

* The Butter Battle Book was influential in the anti-arms race during the Cold War.

* He’s not a doctor, and his last name isn’t even Seuss! He’s Theodore Seuss Geisel, and the name got started as a pen name when he was the humor editor of his college newspaper.

* He created many words, but the word “nerd” is all his own. It first appeared in If I Ran the Zoo.

* The voice of Tony the Tiger sang the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” in the original cartoon special (the only one that matters), but he didn’t get any on-screen credit for it. Dr. Seuss wrote letters to editors of newspapers all over the country to correct the mistake.

* He wrote Cat in the Hat because he thought the Sally, Dick and Jane books were boring.

What do you think? What’s your favorite Dr. Seuss book?