Dr. Seuss: American Icon - by Philip Nel (Paperback)

About the Book

First published to coincide with the centenary of Seuss's birth in March 2004, Dr. Seuss: American Icon, celebrates one of the most influential authors and artists of the 20th century: Theodor Seuss Geisel, best known as 'Dr. Seuss. Dr Seuss's ascendance from children's author to American icon confirms that his cultural significance rests not just with the beginning reader, but with the scholar, the artist, and the poet.

Book Synopsis

Published in time for the centenary of Seuss's birth in March 2004, Dr. Seuss: American Icon, celebrates one of the most influential authors and artists of the 20th century: Theodor Seuss Geisel, best known as 'Dr. Seuss'. Dr Seuss's ascendance from children's author to American icon confirms that his cultural significance rests not just with the beginning reader, but with the scholar, the artist, and the poet.

Seuss's Beginner Books(starting with The Cat in the Hat in 1957) have obscured the enormous range of his contributions to American literature. Similarly his art, unfairly overlooked because it appears in children's books, cartoons, and commercials, actually covers a range of styles, including Surrealism, Art Nouveau, and Cubism.

Bringing to light the adult perspective behind the children's writer, Philip Nel examines Seuss's lesser-known works, such as the 'adult book' The Seven Lady Godivas (1939), and the live-action musical The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953). The book also features the most comprehensive Seuss bibliography ever produced, documenting his prodigious output.

As well as establishing Seuss's place among poets and artists, Dr. Seuss: American Icon links the Seuss people know and the Seuss people do not know.

Review Quotes

."..very well conceived text. With its focus on Seuss's aesthetics, politics, and legacy in American cultural life, "Dr. Seuss: American Icon "should appeal to Americanists and to children's literature scholars alike."- Gwen Athene Tarbox, "American Studies, "Vol. 47:2--Sanford Lakoff

."..very well conceivedtext. With its focus on Seuss's aesthetics, politics, and legacy in Americancultural life, "Dr. Seuss: American Icon "shouldappeal to Americanists and to children's literature scholars alike."- GwenAthene Tarbox, "American Studies, "Vol.47:2--,

mention--Children's Literature Association Quarterly

Because Nel frames his discussion within contemporary criticism, his analysis is more important to children s literature scholars in the academy. he sprinkles the scholarly publications of other throughout his text, thus supporting his conclusions. His text is richly embedded with the earlier research of children s literature scholars and ties into cultural aesthetics and children s literature. environmental ideal, and his markers of political protest in his images is most valuable. they will have an important impact on further discussions of Dr. Seuss cartoonist, satirist, consumer magnate, and instigator of twenty-first-century aesthetics in American children s culture. The Lion and the Unicorn, 1/05

By his own admission, Nel offers a text that is somewhat schematic, he dedicates each chapter to a different aspect of Geisel s work and uses a different theoretical approach: on poetry, he uses formalism; on politics, historicism; on marketing, cultural studies; and so on. Such varying thematic interpretations reveal Nel s remarkable extensive research, which reaches from Geisel s political cartoons to his decisions about copyright and trademark to protect his own creations. Nel offers astute analyses of both racism and sexism in Geisel s work, and one particularly interesting chapter outlines the intertextual borrowings and influences from Geisel s work. All this is richly illustrate with more than 30 reproductions. The invaluable 70-page annotated bibliography lists both primary works and secondary sources films, books, interviews, reviews, and Web sites. Essential. Choice, 9/04--E.R. Baer

Dr. Seuss: American Icon is consistently lively, engaging, and impeccably researched. Its seventy-two-page annotated bibliography alone will prove indispensable to future Seuss researchers and useful for students and scholars of twentieth-century American children s literature and culture Children s Literature 33, 2005

Dr. Seuss: American Icon provides the reader a memorably excellent survey of Dr. Seuss many achievements. Library Bookwatch, November 2004

Like The Cat in the Hat, which can be enjoyed by both parents and children, lay people and scholars, Nel s book neither forgets nor talks down to its audience. A fine example of scholarship, Dr. Seuss: American Icon will be equally at home on the researcher s bookshelf or the Seuss fan s coffee table. Well-written, well-argued, and well-conceived, Nel s good-humored book teaches a lesson of which Dr. Seuss would approve: good scholarship, like good literature, can be both rich and accessible. It s a lesson from which we might all learn. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 17-4, 2004

About the Author

Philip Nel is Assistant Professor of English at Kansas State University. He is the author of JK Rowling's Harry Potter Novels: A Reader's Guide (2001) - and The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity (2002). He is currently writing a biography of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss.