A Child’s Mind in the Hand of a Genius
‘Drunken Kaiser,’ that is the nickname Theodor Geisel was called as a child. The brewery owned by his father and his German descent contributed to the name, a name that only led to rocks, bottles and obscenities tossed in his direction. There was no fighting back, instead over the course of his 86 years he created some of the greatest cartoons, books and even films to grace the eyes and ears of adults and children everywhere. Described by Jonathan Cott, an author in his own right as, “…a genre, a category, an institution,” Mr. Geisel contributed more to a society than his stories but gave the world something to hold onto forever.His sixty plus books have been translated into 15 languages and are read in over 45 countries. Looking back on his lifetime he witnessed and shaped the minds of children, adults and politicians. Either through cartoons during WWII or in books so simple the vocabulary rarely reached over 400 words. The messages weren’t always clear but the morals dealt with nuclear arms, the environment, war, racial tolerance, and antifascism. Still the text was sim . . .
ple enough for a five-year old to read. The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and The Lorax are all classics, the hundred year old grandma that lives down the block still remembers the first time she encountered Dr. His influence spanned all ages, cultures, mediums, and ideas. His life spanned all but thirteen years of the 20th century and his work will span centuries to come. Hitler and Mussolini grace most of the cartoons and it is also through these historical drawings that Seuss rails the isolationism, racism and anti-Semitism that was present around the world Dr. Seuss captured the minds of children starting after the end of the Second World War. Seuss is studied in school,” Lewis Nichols of the New York Times Book Review summarizes the power that Dr. His logic regarding important issues of the time and those to come in the future was easily understandable by the youth. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now! except Marvin’s name was replaced with Nixon’s. Helen Geisel, his 1st wife, said once, “His mind never grew up,” and that was true in a sense; he showed children something they could understand. Youth, it’s something we all possess, others hold onto it while some let it slide from their grasps as they seemingly age. Before Seuss even became the king of children’s books he was drawing political cartoons for New York’s PM (a daily newspaper between 1940-1948).
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