JF Ptak Science Books—Repost   Blog Bookstore

Repost of an earlier post here on the immortal The Cat in the Hat in honor of Dr. Suess’ birthday, today. (Full entry here).

I was reminded in my Asheville neighbor  Marty Weil’s wonderful blog on all things ephemera of the importance and long-term significance
of Dr. Seuss
(Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991, and son and grandson of
brewmasters).  I think that it is impossible to calculate the overall
impact of Seuss’ bringing young people to the joy of reading, and,
actually, to the familiarization of kids with the bare mechanics of
reading.  Of course he told a great story, but his books were literally
page-tuners—they were simply written with words useful to children,
with few words per page, thereby allowing the child to see the
pictures, read all of the words, and turn the page, giving them a sense
of accomplishment along with enjoying  a fine story.   Perhaps it is
the getting-the-kids-used –to-reading that was his most fantastic
accomplishment—and something that few others have achieved, measuring
by just pure numbers. 

And the way in which he did this was to artistically use an
extremely limited budget of words—Dr. Seuss used precisely 236
different words to write The Cat in the Hat…

Continue reading HERE.