Happy Birthday, Dr. Suess!

Saturday was Dr. Suess Day...his birthday! Many classrooms will be celebrating by reading his books to the students.  That is what I have been invited to do in a fifth grade classroom. I decided to do my read aloud with the first book Dr. Seuss wrote: And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.

Since I will be traveling to New York City this week, I thought it would be great to share the idea of what Mulberry Street in New York looked like and the history of the book. Well, I was mistaken.  The Mulberry Street in this book is from the hometown of Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Suess, in Springfield, Mass.

The book is about a boy named Marco who wants to tell his dad an interesting story about what he saw that day. But the only thing Marco saw was a boring old horse and wagon. So he decides to liven it up a bit and the story goes from there!

But, did you know this book was rejected 27 times? One day Theodor was walking home in New York City and he bumped into a friend who had just become an editor at a publishing house. Theodor told his friend that he had given up and was going to destroy the book. His friend told him to let him look at the book. That was the moment that changed Dr. Suess's life.

If he had been walking down the other side of the street, he probably would never have become an author. The book was published. So, it was that ordinary street that launched one extraordinary career!