I apologize for misleading anyone...that was not my intent at all. I am not
the author of this interesting tidbit. A teacher at our school forwarded
this onto me & I thought it was worthy of sharing. :)
Have a super day & fantastic Seuss Week!
Sincerely,
Linda Lay
Future LMS
Madison, AL.
boofredlay@knology.net
Presently a special education teacher at Horizon Elementary
www.madisoncity.k12.al.us
-----Original Message-----
From: School Library Media & Network Communications
[mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Eric and Linda Lay
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 4:47 PM
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Dr. Seuss - interesting trivia
10 stories behind Dr. Seuss stories
1. In case you haven't read "The Lorax," it's widely recognized as Dr.
Seuss' take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature.
Loggers were so upset about the book that some groups within the
industry sponsored "The Truax," a similar book -- but from the logging
point of view. Another interesting fact: the book used to contain the
line, "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie," but 14 years
after the book was published, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss
creator. Theodore Geisel, and told him how much the conditions had
improved and implored him to take the line out. Geisel agreed and said
that it wouldn't be in future editions.
2. Somehow, Geisel's books find themselves in the middle of controversy.
The line "A person's a person, no matter how small," from "Horton Hears
a Who!," has been used as a slogan for pro-life organizations. It's
often questioned whether that was Seuss' intent in the first place, but
when he was still alive, he threatened to sue a anti-abortion group
unless they removed his words from their letterhead. Karl ZoBell, the
attorney for Dr. Seuss' interests and for his widow, Audrey Geisel, says
that she doesn't like people to "hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material
to front their own points of view."
3. "If I Ran the Zoo," published in 1950, is the first recorded instance
of the word "nerd."
4. "The Cat in the Hat" was written because Dr. Seuss thought the famous
Dick and Jane primers were insanely boring. Because kids weren't
interested in the material, they weren't exactly compelled to use it
repeatedly in their efforts to learn to read. So, "The Cat in the Hat"
was born.
5. Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss' editor, bet him that he couldn't write a
book using 50 words or less. "The Cat in the Hat" was pretty simple,
after all, and it used 225 words. Not one to back down from a challenge,
Mr. Geisel started writing and came up with "Green Eggs and Ham" --
which uses exactly 50 words. The 50 words, by the way, are: a, am, and,
anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox,
goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me,
mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them,
there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.
6. It's often alleged that "Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!"
was written specifically about Richard Nixon, but the book came out only
two months after the whole Watergate scandal. It's unlikely that the
book could have been conceived of, written, edited and mass produced in
such a short time. Also, Seuss never admitted that the story was
originally about Nixon. That's not to say he didn't understand how well
the two flowed together. In 1974, he sent a copy of Marvin K. Mooney to
his friend Art Buchwald at the Washington Post. In it, he crossed out
"Marvin K. Mooney" and replaced it with "Richard M. Nixon," which
Buchwald reprinted in its entirety.
7. "Yertle the Turtle" = Hitler? Yep. If you haven't read the story,
here's a little overview: Yertle is the king of the pond, but he wants
more. He demands that other turtles stack themselves up so he can sit on
top of them to survey the land. Mack, the turtle at the bottom, is
exhausted. He asks Yertle for a rest; Yertle ignores him and demands
more turtles for a better view. Eventually, Yertle notices the moon and
is furious that anything dare be higher than himself, and is about ready
to call for more turtles when Mack burps. This sudden movement topples
the whole stack, sends Yertle flying into the mud, and frees the rest of
the turtles from their stacking duty. Dr. Seuss actually said Yertle
was a representation of Hitler. Despite the political nature of the
book, none of that was disputed at Random House -- what was disputed was
Mack's burp. No one had ever let a burp loose in a children's book
before, so it was a little dicey. In the end, obviously, Mack burped.
8. "The Butter Battle Book" is one I had never heard of, perhaps with
good reason: it was pulled from the shelves of libraries for a while
because of the reference to the Cold War and the arms race. Yooks and
Zooks are societies who do everything differently. The Yooks eat their
bread with the butter-side up and the Zooks eat their bread with the
butter-side down. Obviously, one of them must be wrong, so they start
building weapons to outdo each other: the "Tough-Tufted Prickly
Snick-Berry Switch," the "Triple-Sling Jigger," the "Jigger-Rock
Snatchem," the "Kick-A-Poo Kid", the "Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom
Blitz," the "Utterly Sputter" and the "Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo." The book
concludes with each side ready to drop their ultimate bombs on each
other, but the reader doesn't know how it actually turns out.
9. "Oh The Places You'll Go" is the final Seuss book published before he
passed away. Published in 1990, it sells about 300,000 copies every year
because so many people give it to college and high school grads.
10. No Dr. Seuss post would be complete without a mention of "How the
Grinch Stole Christmas!" Frankenstein's Monster himself, Boris Karloff,
provided the voice of the Grinch and the narration for the movie. Seuss
was a little wary of casting him because he thought his voice would be
too scary for kids. If you're wondering why they sound a bit different,
it's because the sound people went back to the Grinch's parts and
removed all of the high tones in Karloff's voice. That's why the Grinch
sounds so gravelly. Tony the Tiger, AKA Thurl Ravenscroft, is the voice
behind "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." He received no credit on screen,
so Dr. Seuss wrote to columnists in every major U.S. newspaper to tell
them exactly who had sung the song.
Linda Lay
Future LMS
Madison, AL.
boofredlay@knology.net
Presently a special education teacher at Horizon Elementary
www.madisoncity.k12.al.us <http://www.madisoncity.k12.al.us/>
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2716 - Release Date: 03/01/10
01:34:00
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, you send a message to:
listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER:
1) SIGNOFF LM_NET
2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL
4) SET LM_NET DIGEST
* LM_NET Help & Information: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/
* LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
* EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/join.html
* LM_NET Supporters: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/category/links/el-announce/
* LM_NET Wiki: http://lmnet.wikispaces.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2716 - Release Date: 03/01/10
01:34:00
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, you send a message to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER:
1) SIGNOFF LM_NET
2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL
4) SET LM_NET DIGEST
* LM_NET Help & Information: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/
* LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
* EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/join.html
* LM_NET Supporters: http://lmnet.wordpress.com/category/links/el-announce/
* LM_NET Wiki: http://lmnet.wikispaces.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home