What's your favorite Dr. Seuss book?

Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday, and in honor of the creator of "The Cat in the Hat" and many other classics, we're taking a quick look at some of his most beloved works and wondering: What's your favorite Dr. Seuss book?


Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel would have been 107 today. He used his middle name as his pen name (it's actually pronounced ZOI-ce, not SOO-ce) and was known to quip that he was saving his real last name for the Great American Novel he planned to write someday. Instead, he wrote and illustrated more than 60 books as Dr. Seuss, as well as a dozen or so more as "Theo LeSeig" and one as "Rosetta Stone"; there have been countless movie and television adaptations of his work.


His first children's book, "And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street!," was published in 1937. An earlier book, an ABC primer of fanciful creatures, was written in 1931-the same year he and his wife, Helen, discovered that they couldn't have children. According to his biography at Seussville:

To silence friends who bragged about their own children, Ted liked to boast of the achievements of their imaginary daughter, Chrysanthemum-Pearl. He even dedicated The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1938) - his second children's book - to "Chrysanthemum-Pearl (aged 89 months, going on 90)." He included her on Christmas cards, along with Norval, Wally, Wickersham, Miggles, Boo-Boo, Thnud, and other purely fictional children. For a photograph used on one year's Christmas card, Geisel even invited in half a dozen neighborhood kids to pose as his and Helen's children. The card reads, "All of us over at Our House / Wish all of you over at / Your House / A very Merry Christmas," and is signed "Helen and Ted Geisel and the kiddies." "I don't write for children. I write for people," he often said, explaining why his books were such a success. "I think I can communicate with kids because I don't try to communicate with kids," he said in a 1985 interview. "Ninety percent of the children`s books patronize the child and say there`s a difference between you and me, so you listen to me tell this story. I, for some reason or another, don`t do that. I treat the child as an equal."


What's your favorite Dr. Seuss book from when you were a child? (Mine's "On Beyond Zebra," a story about an alphabet that begins where Z ends).

Like this story? Follow us on Twitter for more.

Also on Shine: