Lively text depicts how Ted Geisel, a boy who "feasted on books and was wild about animals,"

Author: Kathleen Krull
Illustrator: Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher
Format: Hardcover
Published: Random House, 2004

Lively text depicts how Ted Geisel, a boy who "feasted on books and was wild about animals," grew up to be Dr. Seuss, the most famous children's author of them all. Though the out-of-sync Geisel was teased because of his German heritage (particularly during WWI) and discouraged by his art teachers, he eventually attended Oxford University and went to work as a cartoonist in Greenwich Village. The biography focuses on his childhood, ending as he sets out to become an illustrator in New York. An author's note fills in some details of his later life and works. Zippy illustrations and decorations from Seuss' own artwork fill the pages.