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NAME OF POET Theodore Seuss Geisel

BORN: in Springfield, Massachusetts, where his grandparents lived on Mulberry Street DIED: in La Jolla California September24, 1991 ABOUT HIS/HER LIFE: He started using it as a pseudonym at university. He added the Dr later, as a joke, because his father had always wanted him to become a professor. . His mother was one source of inspiration: she worked in a bakery and would sing him to sleep in his childhood with her "pie-selling chants". In 1948 he and his first wife Helen bought an old observation tower in La Jolla, California, where he would shut himself away in a studio for at least eight hours a day, sometimes literally wearing a thinking cap. The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957, and Green Eggs and Ham, published in 1960, are the two biggest sellers.

ABOUT HIS/HER WORK: .One of his most popular books, Green Eggs and Ham, was the result of a bet that he could not write a book using only 50 words. These are, in order of appearance: I am Sam; that; do not like; you green eggs and ham; them; would here or there; anywhere; in a house with mouse; eat box fox; car they; could; may will see tree; let me be; train on; say the dark; rain; goat; boat; so try may; if; good; thank. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is third on the list of most popular Seuss books in the US. The tongue-twisting Fox in Socks is third in the UK. The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and the counting book One Fish Two Fish are also near the top of the table. A revolutionary one. He has been credited with killing off "Dick and Jane", the sterile heroes of older children's books, replacing them with clever rhymes, plot twists and rebellious heroes who do the unexpected. The Cat in the Hat was commissioned following publication in 1955 of an influential book, Why Johnny Can't Read, which said children were being held back by boring books. More recently, a version of How the Grinch stole Christmas! starring Jim Carrey became the highest grossing film in the USA in the year 2000. A film of The Cat in the Hat, starring Mike Myers, was described by some critics as the worst film of the year in the USA in 2003, though it also did well financially. (It will be in cinemas soon in the UK.) He once said it was not a book or an illustration, but the Lion Wading Pool at Wild Animal Park in San Diego, which he donated in 1973. The Butter Battle Book, published in 1984, about the arms race. Taking the place of the US and the USSR are the Yooks and the Zooks, who disagree on whether bread should be eaten butter-side down, or butter-side up.Between 1937 and 1991, when he died aged 87, he published more than 40 books, which have sold half a billion copies between them - more even than J K Rowling's Harry Potter books