Theodore Geisel, also know as Dr. Seuss, was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father worked in a brewery until 1920 when Prohibition was passed, and his father became a zookeeper.  

After Geisel graduated high school, he went to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, to become a professor. He drew cartoons for the college magazine. In 1925, after graduating, he went to Oxford University in England to get a doctorate in literature. He met Helen Palmer there and married her in 1927. 

Geisel worked in drawing advertisements for fifteen years before writing and illustrating an alphabet book. All the publishers rejected it. In 1936 Geisel wrote And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street. After showing it to 43 publishers, he got it published by a friend. The book became popular This was the first time that he used his pen name Dr. Seuss. Seuss had been his mother's maiden name, and he used Dr. to make it sound more important. 

When the U.S. was at war, Dr. Seuss became Army Captain Geisel. He was sent to California by the Army to write scripts for documentaries.  

After the war he won an Academy Award for a film he had written and an Oscar for a cartoon he animated. Later Geisel recieved a Pulitzer citation. He also recieved an Emmy Award for the animated television show How the Grinch Stole Christmas. 

In 1948 he moved to La Jolla, California. In 1954 he needed to write a book using only 250 words kids should learn. The result was the Cat in the Hat. It used only 220 words. The book was a hit. He and Helen started Beginner Books in Random House Publishing in 1958. 

His publisher, Bennett Cerf, bet Geisel $50 that he couldn't write a book using only 50 words. The book he wrote was Green Eggs and Ham and it became an instant success. Bennett Cerf never did pay Geisel the $50.  

Once Geisel was in his office with the window open. The wind blew through the window, lifted up a piece of paper with a drawing of an elephant on it and the paper landed on a drawing of a tree. Geisel just had to figure out why that elephant was in the tree. He said the elephant was sitting on an egg in a tree. The book was Horton Hatches the Egg.  

Geisel also wrote Horton Hears a Who. He wrote it after he had visited Hiroshima, Japan, which was bombed with an atomic bomb in World War II. This book is about the importance of every life. He wrote The Butter Battle Book to show how silly people are when they fight. 

The Lorax was probably the most famous Dr. Seuss book which had a message. The book is about harming the environment and leaving nothing there. People in the logging buisness thought that the book should be banned, but Geisel defended his book. When he wrote this book he was in Kenya at an Inn. He heard a herd of elephants and grabbed a laundry list and wrote the book in 45 minutes. 

In the book, Yertle the Turtle Geisel used the word "burp". It had never been used in a children's book before. He had to get permission from the president of the publishing house before he could use the word. 

In 1986 Geisel wrote a book for adults. It was called You're Only Old Once! It was about seeing doctors. He was eighty years old, and he felt he was spending to much time in doctors' waiting rooms. The book was a bestseller and sold over a million copies the first year. 

Geisel died on September 24, 1991, at his home in California. His first wife, Helen, died 24 years earlier. His second wife, Audrey, still lives in her home in California.