Back at camp, he sat down and wrote the text for The Lorax on the back of a laundry slip-in 90 minutes! A friend took him to Kenya for inspiration, and while watching a herd of elephants, inspiration struck. But he was blocked, unable to grasp how to present his ideas. He decided to write a book about taking care of the world rather than just exploiting it. Seuss, now a publishing whirlwind, was living in La Jolla, California, and was increasingly disturbed by the commercialization of the town and its environment. Seuss (photo by Al Ravenna, New York World-Telegram and Sun)įast-forward to the start of the 1970s. He wasn’t immediately successful-his first book ( And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street) was turned down by 26 publishers before hitting bookshelves in 1937. And so he did, writing and drawing more than 60 books, many of which can be found in every child’s room in America.

There was one loophole-he could write for children. The only problem was that his Standard Oil contract forbade almost every kind of moonlighting. But he wanted to accomplish more significant work, writing serious books. He was an industry cartoonist, and Standard Oil was his biggest client. Seuss was born as Theordor Geisel in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts (died 1991). Kid’s literature, true, but I’d guess that every adult still thrills to read his anapestic tetrameter, see his phantasmagoric drawings and escape to his whimsical worlds.ĭr. Seuss is one of the most beloved authors in 20 th Century American literature. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” The trees got their voice on this day, August 12, in 1971, when Dr.

The lorax 1971