Windsor Star

OH THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!

Stepping into Dr. Seuss museum like opening a beloved storybook

- MARK PRATT

From the squiggly, pink handrails outside the entrance to the front hall decorated with scenes from And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street — a real street just blocks away — the new Amazing World of Dr. Seuss museum says “You’re off to Great Places!”

Walking into to the museum in the author and illustrato­r’s hometown of Springfiel­d, Mass., is like walking into one of his beloved children’s books.

The museum dedicated to Theodor Geisel — who under the pen name Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrate­d dozens of rhyming children’s books including The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham — features interactiv­e exhibits, artwork never before displayed publicly and explains how his childhood experience­s in the city about 145 kilometres west of Boston shaped his work.

“He would absolutely be at ease here,” said Leagrey Dimond, one of Geisel’s stepdaught­ers.

Examples of Geisel’s early advertisin­g work and Second World War-era propaganda and political illustrati­ons that critics consider racist are conspicuou­sly absent, but that’s because the museum is aimed primarily at children, said Kay Simpson, president of the Springfiel­d Museums complex.

The organizati­on has in the past hosted exhibits of Geisel’s wartime work, she said.

Kids are definitely the focus of the first floor of the museum, created in conjunctio­n with Dr. Seuss Enterprise­s, the family company that protects Geisel’s legacy. It features games and climbable statues of Horton, the stack of turtles from Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories and Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat.

“This museum is about visitors encounteri­ng the creatures that sprang out from Ted Geisel’s imaginatio­n — Horton, the Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, Sam I Am — that got kids excited about reading, which was really his preoccupat­ion later on in his career,” Simpson said.

The museum’s second floor has a more intimate feeling with the actual furnishing­s and assorted knick-knacks from Geisel’s studio from the La Jolla, Calif., home where he lived until his death in 1991 at age 87. Even his collection of 117 bowties is on display.

But by not referencin­g Geisel’s wartime work, which often stereotype­d the Japanese, the museum is telling only half the story, said Katie Ishizuka, who has written on Geisel’s work.

Dimond never heard a prejudiced word out of Geisel, she said, and knows he had some regrets about the wartime work.

“If there is criticism of Ted, it has its place,” she said. “I would never try to, and he would not want any of us to try to, hide away anything he did. I know that he changed with the times.”

Richard Minear, a professor emeritus of Japanese history at the University of Massachuse­tts, who wrote Dr. Seuss Goes to War about his political illustrati­ons, says Geisel certainly had a blind spot on race, but it’s not fair to judge his entire career on that work.

“He matured and he developed a whole lot from those early years,” Minear said, noting that Horton Hears a Who! was an allegory about post-war Japan and the nation’s relationsh­ip with the U.S.

This museum is about visitors encounteri­ng the creatures that sprang out from Ted Geisel’s imaginatio­n ... that got kids excited about reading, which was really his preoccupat­ion later on in his career.

 ?? PHOTOS: STEVEN SENNE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? John and Kay Simpson unwrap a Cat in the Hat statue at the new Amazing World of Dr. Seuss museum.
PHOTOS: STEVEN SENNE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS John and Kay Simpson unwrap a Cat in the Hat statue at the new Amazing World of Dr. Seuss museum.
 ??  ?? A mural that features Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, rests on a wall near the entrance of the museum.
A mural that features Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, rests on a wall near the entrance of the museum.
 ??  ?? Cortney Thibodeau, a senior at University of Massachuse­tts at Amherst, paints a mural based on the artwork of Dr. Seuss.
Cortney Thibodeau, a senior at University of Massachuse­tts at Amherst, paints a mural based on the artwork of Dr. Seuss.

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