INTERVIEW BY DAVID SHEFF
PARENTING | 1987

Parenting: As a parent, I’m a fan—because yours are among the very few children’s books that I don’t mind reading again and again and again. Where does the magic come from?
Seuss: Someone asked a very famous golfer what he did to be able to drive 300 yards and he began thinking about it and thinking about it and he never was able to hit the ball the same way. I really don’t know the answer. It’s the verse to a great extent. The absurdity, perhaps? And the fun. Also, my books don’t insult kids’ intelligence. Ninety percent of the children’s books published do.

Parenting: Why do most people insult kids’ intelligence and you don’t?
Seuss: Maybe it’s because I’m on their level. When I dropped out of Oxford I decided to be a child, so it’s not some condescending adult writing for these little odd creatures. That’s where all the carriers about fluffy little bunnies come from. Terrible stuff. Insulting.

Parenting: What do kids want from a book?
Seuss: The same things we want: To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted. The funny thing is that the people who are the worst offenders when it comes to condescending attitudes toward children are the people who work closely with kids—teachers, for instance. God, they talk down to kids. I avoid that because I don’t necessarily write for kids. I write for myself. I have to be kept interested, kept entertained, or I can’t do it. Why bother?

Parenting: You’ve received all kinds of accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize. Yet some people have suggested that all the fuss is unwarranted; that you’re just writing kids’ books with easy sing-song rhyming.
Seuss: That’s the trick, isn’t it? Making it look so easy. But of course that’s the hard part, creating the impression you knocked something off in a weekend when it may have taken months.

Parenting: Have any of your books popped up like that—over a weekend?
Seuss: Most have taken nine or so months. The Grinch wrote itself very fast up until the last page, the last page took two and a half months. I tried hundreds of endings before I found the right one.

Parenting: Can you describe the process by which you create a book?
Seuss: I start with an idea that usually has a little to do with the way things end up. I draw the pictures and they begging to tell the story. I stick them up on the wall and work with them like a puzzle. When I get characters on the wall, they get into conflicts with each other. My first drafts are obscene. If I can’t think of a proper word, I say “the son of a bitch” or something. “The bastard did this…” I clean it up afterwards. I think the echo of that somehow remains, though. Ninety percent of what I come up with gets discarded.

Parenting: Do the pictures always come first?
Seuss: It can happen either way and more often words and drawings come simultaneously. Anything can spark an idea. I remember I was drawing a picture of an elephant, just doodling, and when I moved the piece of paper, I saw that it had braced onto another drawing of a tree. So there was this elephant sitting up in a tree. Of course, I had to figure out what it was doing there. I thought about it and realized it was obvious: The elephant was up there sitting on an egg. That’s where Horton Hatched the Egg came from.

Parenting: Do you spend time with kids?
Seuss: As little as possible. It’s dangerous for a children’s book author to try things out on kids. If they don’t like you as a person, they won’t like what you read them even if it’s the greatest stuff in the world. If they do like you, they’ll love it. You don’t get an honest answer.

Parenting: Do you have any children?
Seuss: No, my wife Audrey has two, but I don’t have my own. Then again, I have 200 million kids. That’s enough.

Parenting: Do you like kids?
Seuss: I feel the same about kids as I do about adults: Some are delightful, some are dreadful. Most writers of kids’ books will tell you all children are wonderful, but they’re not.

Parenting: Do you think about the kids who will be reading your books?
Seuss: Generally, I never think about the audience, except on Beginner Books, when I go back to the fourth draft and simplify. I did think of the audience, though, when I got started writing The Butter Battle Book is really about nuclear confrontation, and it’s your first book without a happy ending. At the end, both sides have the Boomeroo—the nuclear bomb—and the little boy asks, “Who’s going to drop it? Will you…”Or will they…?” and the book ends ominously. “Be patient,” said Grandpa.

“We’ll see. We will see.”

Parenting: What reaction to the book would you like to see?
Seuss: I want people to think.

Parenting: Do you use propagandistic skills in your books?
Seuss: Of course. However, most of my books don’t carry heavy morals. The morals sneak in, as they do in all drama. Every story’s got to have a winner, so I happen to make the good guys win.

Parenting: Ought children’s books be propaganda?
Seuss: Of course.

Parenting: Would you feel that way if the children’s writer didn’t share you politics?
Seuss: You mean if it was some right-wing son of a gun grinding his ax? Now that’s real propaganda! In fact, it’s probably a pretty dirty thing I’m doing. When I do it, though, I don’t consider it propaganda; I consider it making sense.

Parenting: Some people feel that Dr. Seuss should not be political. How do you respond?
Seuss: Well, three or four review of The Butter Battle Book said I should stick to my writing cats in the hats and such. I was greatly criticized with The Lorax. If those books had failed, I would have been greatly upset about it. As it is, I’m very pleased and proud.

Parenting: You are notorious for concocting your own words. Who told you you could do that?
Seuss: Hmmm. Don’t know. Lots of people told me I couldn’t.

Parenting: When Did you start inventing like that?
Seuss: In high school, and before. I would draw weird animals and call them different names. A misspent youth…

Parenting: Were those versions of the animals in your books?
Seuss: They were ancestors, I suppose.

Parenting: And how are those words created?
Seuss: That’s the easy part. I can look at an animal and know what it is.

Parenting: Do you ever invent a word in order to finish a verse?
Seuss: I squeak through with that occasionally. It’s a cheering device, though I don’t use it too often.

Parenting: In On Beyond Zebra you make up letters?
Seuss: Well, who said that there were only 26 letters in the alphabet?

Parenting: In your alphabet book there is no “A is for apple” or “Z is for zebra” like most learning books for kids. You have “Z” standing for “Zizzer, zazzer, zuzz…”
Seuss: That book was the only one I ever researched. Beginner Books, the publisher, was a young company, and I worried how teachers would react to my alphabet scheme. So we sent it to 26 teachers for comments. They all wrote back and said, “This is the best alphabet book we have ever seen, but there is one letter the children will hate…” And, of course, each one mentioned a different letter. That’s the last time I asked teachers for their opinion.

Parenting: Your name is one of the most familiar in America, but are you recognized on the streets?
Seuss: Sometimes. The Pulitzer Prize and being 80 years old have a lot to do with it. When you get to be 80, people will recognize you on the streets, too.

Parenting: Do you enjoy the attention?
Seuss: I’d just as soon not have it. I find it often comes from someone who wants something.