Dr. Seuss has achieved what few artists have: his sixty-one children’s books, from And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (1938) to Oh, The Places You’ll Go! (1990) have captivated millions of children’s hearts—and their parents’ too. Dr. Seuss’s characters are charismatic, entertaining, and imaginative. Who doesn’t recognize the Grinch, the elephant Horton, or the Cat in the Hat? Their names evoke fond memories of some of our favorite childhood two-dimensional friends and cozy reading time with family. In these children’s picture books, Dr. Seuss’s world is bizarrely fun and yet outlandishly harmonious. It’s the place where Whos, elephants, tigers, kangaroos, monkeys, and eagles can cavort together, all within the span of a few pages.
The fact that his picture books are imaginative and fun, however, does not ensure that Dr. Seuss’ books lack serious substance. On the contrary, they carry important messages for their young readers. His picture books accomplish a two-fold purpose: teaching words to beginning readers and moral lessons to young citizens. In How the Grinch Stole Christmas, for instance, after the Grinch has successfully made away with all the Whos’ Christmas gifts and decorations, he does not succeed in actually stopping Christmas. Instead, “every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, was singing! Without any presents at all!” Their joy cured his “two sizes too small” heart, and he returned all the stolen goods and joined the Whos’ merry party. Beneath the otherworldly plot, then, are accessible messages of communal joy and forgiveness.
Among these positive messages, though, embracing diversity is perhaps the single most salient one embedded in many of Dr. Seuss’s books. In The Foot Book, Dr. Seuss lists all kinds of feet, including “red feet, black feet…slow feet, quick feet, trick feet, [and] sick feet.” This may be a convenient way to introduce some basic descriptive adjectives, but it’s also a means to show children that feet are feet no matter how they look—a lesson easily extrapolated to people. As Seuss observes in Horton Hears a Who!, “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” In this case, even if a person is invisible to everyone but Horton, with effort they can make their voices heard by all.
However, Dr. Seuss had more than one audience: he also drew cartoons intended for adults.
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