A free appointment with Dr. Seuss

Written Signature of Dr. Seuss for the blog post on Dr. Seuss by Literative

This month we have an appointment with a very particular doctor—I mean poet. The great Dr. Seuss!

Originally born Theodor Seuss Geisel, he would often say that he was saving his real name for the Great American Novel he would one day write. It might not have been true, however, since when talking to the media, he seemed to be more interested in telling a good story than he was in telling a true story.

To pronounce Seuss the way his family did, you wouldn’t say Soose, but Zoice. Seuss’s parents emigrated from Bavaria (part of modern-day Germany) in the nineteenth century. Seuss was his mother’s maiden name, as well as his own middle name.

Beyond words and beyond alphabets!

Seuss wrote books that made people think and imagine. They often opened doors to new levels of reality for which we tend to need new words, or even whole new alphabets, in order to describe them. In “On Beyond Zebra!” he invented an entirely new alphabet because, as the book’s narrator explains:

“In the places I go there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.
I’m telling you this ’cause you’re one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends.”

With this verse, Seuss is suggesting that imagination can lead to discoveries literally beyond words. The deeper we explore reality and our imagination, the more amazing life becomes, and also, the more trouble we will have trying to describe it in words. We might need to invent new words to get there. Languages evolve with experience and follow the levels of reality of those who speak them, so it’s only logical that we would need to expand our language at the same level as we expand our consciousness as a civilization.

Treating Children as equals

Dr. Seuss would often say: “I don’t write for children. I write for people.” Even though his books seem to be aimed at children, he was one of those few authors who saw children as equals—which usually makes the best authors for children, because their books are a real communication between equals and not simply patronising. As he himself told an interviewer once: “I think I can communicate with kids because I don’t try to communicate with kids. Ninety percent of the children’s books patronize the child and say there’s a difference between you and me, so you listen to this story. I, for some reason or another, don’t do that. I treat the child as an equal.”

Treating children with respect and dignity was key to Seuss’s philosophy of writing.

Protecting the forests: the Lorax

When Seuss was in Kenya, he saw “workmen cutting down trees” and thought: “They can’t cut down my Dr. Seuss trees!” From this incident, he named these trees “Truffula Trees,” and invented the Lorax: a small, whiskery character who “speaks for the trees” because “the trees have no voices.”

The Lorax quickly became an icon of environmental conservation. In the book, the Once-ler (a repentant ex-industrialist) tells a visitor how he and his company polluted the environment, destroying the Truffula Trees, driving away all the animals from their natural homes, and eventually the Lorax as well. The book concludes with the following advice:

“Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax
and all of his friends
may come back.”

When Keep America Beautiful gave Dr. Seuss an award in November 1971, the anti-litter organization predicted that The Lorax would “undoubtedly charm many children — and adults as well — into becoming pollution fighters.”

As confirmation of the book’s power, the Lorax is a fictional character with real enemies. Parents working for logging communities even tried to get the book removed from school libraries and reading lists. Seuss’s “The Lorax” has even made the American Library Association’s annual list of challenged and banned books.

In response to all the attacks, Seuss said: “The Lorax doesn’t say lumbering is immoral. I live in a house made of wood and write books printed on paper. It’s a book about going easy on what we’ve got. It’s anti-pollution and anti-greed.”

inspiring quotes from the good Dr. Seuss

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

The Zen, almost koan-like touch of this quote would show and remind us how both fantasy and a little bit of surrealism in life can make us a lot more creative at all levels.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
― Dr. Seuss

No one can do your mission in life better than you. No one can be a better you, than you yourself… sound familiar?

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
― Dr. Seuss

No matter their age, background, economic situation, nationality, culture, looks, skin color, a person’s a person.  We tend to know this most of the time, except when it comes to children. Dr. Seuss reminds us that children, no matter how small, are people too. It should be common sense, yet it tends to be ignored in our society for some reason.

“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”
― Dr. Seuss

Ditch your adult masks, people! Remember you are children, don’t be obsolete and enjoy a good read by the Doctor!

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