Skip to footer

Hold on to your cat in the hat! Long lost Dr. Seuss book to be released

More than twenty years after his death a new Dr. Seuss book, "What Pet Should I Get?" will be published this summer.  

|
PR News Photo/Random House Children's Books
Cover for New Dr. Seuss Book "What Pet Should I Get?" to be published on July 28, 2015.

Gallop and galloon, wail, holler, and sway, a new Dr. Seuss book is on its way!

Random House Children’s Books announced Wednesday that a new Dr. Seuss book, "What Pet Should I Get?" will be published on July 28. The book’s contents are from manuscripts and illustrations discovered by Geisel’s widow Audrey Geisel, after his death while she was remodeling her home in La Jolla, Calif., according to a press release. Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, passed away in 1991 at age 87 and published his last book "Oh the Places You’ll Go" in 1990. 

Mr. Geisel set the work aside and it was untouched for over twenty years until it was rediscovered by Ms. Geisel and her husband’s longtime secretary and friend Claudia Prescott in 2013.

"While undeniably special, it is not surprising to me that we found this because Ted always worked on multiple projects and started new things all the time – he was constantly writing and drawing and coming up with ideas for new stories," Ms. Geisel said. 

"What Pet Should I Get?" will feature the same brother and sister who appeared in 1960’s "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," and captures the excitement of a classic childhood moment – choosing a pet. Random House Associate Publishing Director Cathy Goldsmith says the book was likely written between 1958 and 1962.

At least two more books will be published from the materials discovered, though titles and publication dates have yet to be announced.

"We had no idea what we were in store for when Claudia notified us of the materials discovered in Ted's home," said Susan Brandt, president of Dr.Seuss Enterprises, L.P. "Pages and pages of manuscripts and sketches were laid out on the big glass dining room table. It was truly a magical moment, and we immediately knew this was more than just a box of sketches."

"What Pet Should I Get?" is the the second posthumous release from the Seuss collection. Last September, a lesser-known selection of Seuss’s drawings and stories were published in the "Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories" collection.

"The four stories in this book came from columns that appeared in Redbook magazine in the 1950s," Ms. Goldsmith told NPR. "Dr. Seuss actually wrote a piece once a month for Redbook."       

All of the freshly discovered Seuss material will be housed at the University of California at San Diego’s library, where the Dr. Seuss Collection is housed in the Geisel Library. Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated 45 books during his lifetime, and his books have sold more than 650 million copies worldwide.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Hold on to your cat in the hat! Long lost Dr. Seuss book to be released
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2015/0218/Hold-on-to-your-cat-in-the-hat!-Long-lost-Dr.-Seuss-book-to-be-released
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe