By MICHAEL WINERIP
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — “I’ll take you to see Mulberry Street,” said Guy McLain, the director of the Museum of Springfield History.
He meant the real Mulberry Street, the one that inspired the first of Dr. Seuss’ 44 children’s books.
I started to think what I might see on Mulberry Street. Truffula trees? Gerald McGrew? Gertrude McFuzz? A Once-ler or two?
That’s the thing about Dr. Seuss. He gets in your head and stays there.
I was listening to the radio last week when I heard an announcer say that this year is the 75th anniversary of the publication of “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.”
Dr. Seuss has sold 600 million books, so I figured there had to be something going on Mulberry Street. Springfield is where Ted Geisel was born in 1904 and thought his formative thoughts, before going off to Dartmouth in 1921 and becoming Dr. Seuss.
I planned to reread several Seuss books for the visit, including “The Sneetches,” but could not find our copy. It turned out that one of my 21-year-old twins, Adam, had taken it with him to college.
Dr. Seuss books aren’t primarily schoolbooks. They’re read-to-your-children-in-bed books. Christin LaRocque, a librarian at the Central branch in downtown Springfield, says Seuss books need to be replaced more often than any others — they wear out or disappear.
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