Birthday of Dr. Seuss to be celebrated Monday at Charles City Middle School

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

“‘I know some good games we could play,’ said the Cat.”

“‘I know some good tricks,’ said the Cat in the Hat.”

The Charles City Community Education Association will ring in the birthday of Dr. Seuss on Monday at Charles City Middle School, and everyone is welcome — even a tall, anthropomorphic feline in a striped-hat and bow tie.

The celebration of Dr. Seuss and his impact of children’s education will begin at 5 p.m. and will include snacks, activities, free books for students, a magic act and a special appearance by the aforementioned Cat in the Hat.

“I think most kids have grown up with the Dr. Seuss books,” said Diane Sande, who teaches fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary. “We use a lot of his quotes — he has a lot of inspirational quotes, a lot of things that pertain to a lot of kids.”

Sande explained that the education association gets a community grant every other year to cover expenses for the event, which has been held at the public library and at Lincoln in the past.

“This year we decided to try it at the middle school because that building is open and more spread out,” said Sande, who added that kids in preschool up to fifth grade are the target ages, and the children should be accompanied by an adult.

Ted Geisel was an American children’s author, political cartoonist, illustrator, poet, animator, screenwriter and filmmaker. He is best known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss.

His work includes many of the most popular children’s books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death in 1991 at the age of 87.

Geisel’s birthday — March 2 — has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association.

“It’s an event to celebrate Dr. Seuss,” Sande said. “There are a lot of good lessons in a lot of his books.”

Sande said that there will be six different learning and activity stations at the middle school, and each child who comes will get a free book, a cookie and coloring pages. There will also be opportunities to get a photo taken with the Cat in the Hat.

“Look at me, look at me, look at me now!”

“It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.”