What's up with Whatsit

On a positive note . . .

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

~ Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel
March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991

Today is Read Across America Day, otherwise known as the birthday of Dr. Seuss. My school is having a celebration. There are teachers with Dr. Seuss shirts on. There a children dressed as Sneetches and wearing Cat in the Hat hats. They are so cute! And there is much reading going on. There are parent guest readers reading the Dr. Seuss books. Hooray! And this is the coincidence of the year: the week before Christmas I placed an order with Rainbow Book Company for lots of the Dr. Seuss books, and guess what? I got them this morning. Isn't that great? It really gave me the big head with myself.

I found out that Dr. Seuss wrote his books in anapestic tetrameter. I wonder if he knew that.

Another Dr. Seuss fact: I have always heard Seuss pronounced "soos." Evidently this was not correct. Here is a poem by Alexander Liang giving the correct pronunciation:

You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice.

One final fact: the most checked out book last year in my library was Green Eggs and Ham. However after all that I must have a moment of honesty. I rarely ever read any Dr. Seuss books aloud. Why not? you might very reasonably ask. The reason is that they are very hard to read out loud. Go get one from the library or the bookstore and try it.

Happy Dr. Seuss's birthday, everybody. Go have good fun that is funny today.