Day 12:

For Heidi (and the other believers):

I love wildly imaginative people and how their ideas and creations bring an extraordinary kind of magic to the world -- a necessary kind of magic that makes things brighter and more daring. Children's books are always a fruitful place to find such wonder. So I decided to take a spin through the kids section of my bookshelves today in celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday.

I found a book called The Fish that my dad gave me in 1971.  And Put Me in the Zoo, a favorite book from my grandma's house. Make Way for Ducklings of course.  And Where the Wild Things Are.  And the Story about Ping, the beautiful young duck who lived with his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and forty-two cousins on the wise-eyed boat on the Yangtze river. All well-loved books that have been read and enjoyed many, many times over.

But the Dr. Seuss books shine the brightest of all.  They always did. Growing up, we made a beeline for the "S" shelf at the library, crossing our fingers that they wouldn't all be checked out. You could spot them from way across the room because the books were big and the spines were more radiant than the others. And it wasn't until years later that my mom announced that she never truly appreciated reading all of those Seuss books filled with constant tongue twisters and nonsense words.  But she was the kind of mom who did it because it was a "mom" thing to do.

I remember how these books made me feel. How the Cat in the Hat shocked me with his spectacularly unruly messes. And how the Lorax made me sad as he tried in vain to save the wonderful truffula trees.  How I always wanted to know why the Grinch became so mean in the first place. And how giddy all of the preposterous creatures, places and situations made me... the Gacks and the Zeeps and the Zeds and the Zans... and the upside down inside out fishes and fans.

From today's vantage point, I can see why.  So much of Dr. Seuss' work is about believing in the fantastical.  It's about the wise children and creatures who seek it and want to experience it and the grownups who simply can't.  The sensational hullabaloo on Mulberry Street... the wondrous world deep down in McElligot's pool... the astonishing miniature community on Horton's speck of dust... and the stupendous appearance of hat after hat on Bartholomew Cubbins' head....

So splendidly bizarre.  So worth believing in.