Dr. Seuss: The Great Doodler

by Kate Klimo, Steve Johnson (Illustrator), Lou Fancher (Illustrator)

Overview

A Step 3 Biography Reader about Theodor Geisel and his transformation from a doodler into the beloved Dr. Seuss. Little Ted Geisel always had a sketchpad and pencil in hand. He was a Boy Scout with a penchant for creating zany creatures. He grew up with a love of books and words from his mother, and his inventor father spawned a wildly imaginative and perfectionist side. It’s no wonder that these qualities led to the beloved work of Dr. Seuss, the Great Doodler.
 
Follow his career as an ad man, political cartoonist, creator of forty-five indelible children’s books, and Pulitzer Prize winner. Not bad for a lifelong doodler! Includes fun facts and several of Dr. Seuss’s original sketches and artwork!

Selected as one of the Best Children’s Books of the Year-2017, by the Bank Street College of Education and Children’s Book Committee! 
 
Step 3 Readers feature engaging characters in easy-to-follow plots about popular topics. For children who are ready to read on their own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553497601
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	01/26/2016
Series:	Step into Reading Book Series: A Step 3 Book
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	157,031
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

KATE KLIMO is the author of the hit middle-grade Dragon Keepers series and the YA Centauriad series. She lives in New Paltz, New York, with her husband and two horses, Fancy and Harry. For over two decades, Kate Klimo led the Dr. Seuss publishing program at Random House, including the development of the Cat in the Hat Learning Library books and the production of the PBS Kids TV show The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!

The husband-and-wife team of STEVE JOHNSON and LOU FANCHER has illustrated over thirty books, including Jim Henson: The Guy Who Played with Puppets by Kathleen Krull; The Boy on Fairfield Street, also by Kathleen Krull; My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss; New York’s Bravest by Mary Pope Osborne; and Amazing Peace by Maya Angelou. Their book with Lois Duncan, I Walk at Night, was a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. They are also the recipients of a Society of Illustrators Gold Medal.

Editorial Reviews

2015-12-22
For children who can read And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street without help, an account of its creator's life and career. Klimo teams up with the illustrators of Kathleen Krull's The Boy on Fairfield Street (2004) to tell the same tale in (somewhat) simpler language. Opening with the news of his Pulitzer Prize win—"Not bad for a lifelong doodler!"—she follows "Ted" from birth on. It's a lightweight chronicle that includes his youth and early career as a cartoonist, his personal and public lives, his major picture-book successes and breakthrough easy readers, and his work as the publisher of the Beginner Books imprint. Johnson and Fancher incorporate actual Seussian artwork into their golden-toned paintings, including some commercial work but not, happily, the now-discomfiting racial caricatures he drew during World War II when, as the author diplomatically puts it, he "poked fun at Hitler and Japan." Along with views of the man himself at various ages, the illustrators include racially diverse groups of children and (something of a stretch) publishers raptly reading or listening. There is no bibliography, and the recent string of posthumous publications goes unmentioned. Still, newly independent readers will come away with a picture of the creative genius behind the Cat, the Grinch, and all that incomparable wordplay. Not essential but a handsome tribute. (Early reader/biography. 5-7)

Kirkus Reviews