Dr Seuss: American Icon

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2007), "Dr Seuss: American Icon", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 7, pp. 634-636. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710776088

Any American reader of this review is likely to recognize the name of Dr Seuss. It was the name Theodore Seuss Geisel adopted for his forty‐or‐so books for children, books that had by 2000 sold well over 400 million copies throughout the world. He is, in fact, a publishing phenomenon like Harry Potter, Winnie‐the‐Pooh, and the Wizard of Oz. Well‐known as Dr Seuss is, above all for his “The Cat in the Hat” beginner books series, that taught American children to read from the 1940s to the 1970s, he is a lot more than a children's author‐illustrator.

Philip Nel adds to studies of Dr Seuss by Judith and Neil Morgan, Carol Greene, and Edward Lathem, by examining the range of Dr Seuss's work – poetry, politics, art, and biography. As well as directing a steady critical eye on the work, its meaning and impact, he sets the children's work in that necessarily wider context of the cartoons and contemporary politics, the satire and messages, the place Dr Seuss has in the public imagination, and in the marketing and merchandising machine that is American business.

As a result, Nel suggests that Dr Seuss is not only an icon (culturally speaking) but also an iconoclast (for his outspoken words and images about fair play and the environment, for creatures like the Grinch who was not allowed to steal Christmas and the Lorax who protected the environment). Dr Seuss is also an icon of and for American commerce, with extensive trademark and copyright‐protected book and merchandizing deals, many imitators and look‐alikes, and, like Disney, a focus of debates about quality in children's publishing and children's reading.

This is a well‐written and well‐argued book, alert to the framework of critical ideas that have arisen around Dr Seuss. Indeed, there is something for everyone here – the children's literature expert, the bibliographer, the social historian, the librarian working with children and young people, the educationalist, and anyone interested in cartoons. It is easy to think of illustrators for children as being just that and no more: names like Edward Gorey and Roger Duvoisin, Maurice Sendak and William Steig and above all Tomi Ungerer spring to mind. Dr Seuss, too, was a man with many talents as this study and the Morgan biography confirm. Pages 212‐284 consists of an in‐depth bibliography of primary and secondary sources by and about Dr Seuss, and, as such, offers an invaluable bibliographical update in its field.

Nel examines Dr Seuss for his poetry, calling him a laureate of nonsense in the tradition of Lear and Carroll. The inventiveness of his rhymes, his love of portmanteau and invented words (“nerd” is one of his), the rush of words and fun in books like Green Eggs and Ham, If I Ran the Zoo, and his very first And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (dating from 1937), can never be forgotten, once encountered. Nel turns to politics and the cartoons of Dr Seuss, in magazines like PM during the 1940s, to themes like tyranny which come through in books like The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and Yertle the Turtle. He was a creature of his time in drawing on stereotypes (above all of women and of the Japanese), but Nel asks us to understand that in context.

The artwork of Dr Seuss deserves formal study. Nel discusses the surreal fantasy of his drawings, traces influences like George Herriman of Krazy Kat fame (and even Escher and others), suggesting links between Dr Seuss and Art Spiegelman of the legendary Maus graphic novel, and teasing connections through to films by Tim Burton. For the student of cultural history this is of particular interest. Nel also interests himself in Dr Seuss the man. Very little is told of the private life of Dr Seuss, although his relationships with women imply some tensions with his wish to remain in control. His main characters are confident males – often adolescents at that, leading Nel to wonder how far the creativity of his satire and parody “comes from adolescence”. At the same time, like Roald Dahl, he insists that adults should not push children around and should be taken seriously, probably a major reason for his continuing popularity today.

Pictures remain (Nel draws on archive material in the Geisel Library in the special collections section of the library at the University of California at San Diego) of Dr Seuss as the Cat in the Hat and as the Grinch, and so some of his fantastic characters were self‐portraits. He had long experience of the advertising and marketing world, and so readily turned to such artistic styles. This moves the discussion on to the marketing aspects of Dr Seuss, the success of Dr Seuss Enterprises and of collaborations with companies like Random House (more might have been revealed about this relationship).

The books were, and are, hugely popular. We add to that a lot of imitations and pastiches, compilations (like aphorisms of Dr Seuss) and board books. Some of these have provoked law suits over trademark and copyright, and Nel includes a fascinating interlude on that. Because his work was more product than copyrightable text/image, Dr Seuss Enterprises relied (and rely) more on trademark than on copyright protection. Nel shrewdly suggests too that, like Disney, the extension of the copyright term under US law is shows self‐interest among rights‐holders.

We wonder, then, whether “the iconoclastic Seuss is overpowered by the marketing‐icon Seuss” (p. 167). Dr Seuss is an American icon – we learned to read, we love the pictures, we recognize the creatures, politicians and their enemies refer to the Grinch and Yertle, the logging industry attacks the environmental lobby's use of the Lorax as a symbol, and his messages about prejudice and his political fables. He is also a marketing juggernaut and a man of his time. For critics and practitioner information people alike, the work of Dr Seuss (now everywhere in toys and clothes and films and not just books) poses that age‐old critical challenge – can a children's author be both popular and quality? The commentators are still divided.

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