I never had any Dr Seuss books as a kid. My brother had Yurtle the
Turtle but even then I could I tell that that book sort of falls outside
of what I'd reckon to be the core material.

My cousins had loads of them and I always loved flicking through them.
It's only over the past 3 years that I've started to study the works
of the great Theodore Geisel. I've been working on two kid's books
and thought it would do me good to see how the Master operates
and although I picked up very little technical tips, the one lesson I
came away with is this: Never try second guess your audience.

I've heard that from publishers before but I now know the true
meaning of it. If you want an example read Fox in Socks, what the
fuck is that all about? Click here for text. It cracks me up everytime
I (try) read it. And what could be better to a kid than a story that
the parent loves reading? Although I've read enough about his life
and work process to know rhyming was a supreme effort for him,
I take this book as the shining example of sincerity; no obvious
preachy moral, no cute kids, has creepy artwork and freaky humour
that by all rights shouldn't appeal to anyone but it IS a revered all time
classic.

Anyway, besides that I have two reasons for this post. First of all is this:

I'm always googling 'clam' to see what I can find and last week I

found this .The Cat in the Hat is back, ghostwritten and ghostscribbled

by 3 people. I honestly feel his back catalogue (cat-in-the-hatalogue?)

is enough without adding to it. The ethics of continuing to create

Dr Seuss books while Dr Seuss is dead irks me but not too much.

He's going to live forever through his original stories but with these

Tupac 'from beyond the grave' books it'll make sure new generations

of brats will be exposed.