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Posted on Mar 2, 2011

10 Things You May Not Have Known About Dr. Seuss And His Books

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! To celebrate 107 years of whimsical rhymes and imaginative illustrations, here are 10 facts you may not have known about the man behind the Cat in the Hat.

1. Dr. Seuss's real name is Theodore Geisel.

Okay, you probably knew that... but it's an important fact to begin with!
2. He started using the pen name Seuss after getting kicked off the Dartmouth College literary humor magazine.

He threw a boozy party during the height of prohibition and got in trouble. He needed a pseudonym to keep writing for the magazine.
3. He had other pen names too!

Dr. Seuss was for the books he both wrote and illustrated. Theo LeSeig was for books that he wrote without illustrating. Rosetta Stone was for one book he penned called Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo!
4. He actually pronounced "Seuss" like "Soice." (Rhymes with voice.)

You're wrong as the deuce/ And you shouldn't rejoice/ If you're calling him Seuss./ He pronounces it Soice. (via)
5. He got famous for illustrating insecticide ads.
6. His first book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, was inspired by a boat ride from Europe.

The rhythmic sound of the ship's engine was inspiration to writing an equally rhythmic text for a children's book.
7. He almost burned the book because 27 publishers rejected him!
8. He never had his own children.

He was kind of afraid of them. (via)
9. Green Eggs And Ham has exactly 50 words.

He won a $50 bet with his publisher for accomplishing this!
10. Abortion groups like to use the line, "A person's a person, no matter how small," in their rhetoric.

Its often questioned what Horton Hears A Who means in the first place, but when he was still alive, Dr. Seuss threatened to sue an anti-abortion group unless they removed his words from their letterhead. (via)