Literacy Thursday

**Welcome to Literacy Thursdays. This post is designed to highlight some of our favorite books in hopes that you will blog about yours. We are always looking for new books to discover. Literacy is so important and even at the youngest of ages is crucial to development. If you don't have children of your own volunteer at a school, read to a neighborhood child, but get involved. It's a great way to share quality time with the youngest of our society.

Here's the play by play: You blog about your book. Give me a shout out in your blog by creating a link to my blog and using my Literacy button. Then at the bottom of my post, you will find Mr. Linky. Sign your name and add the web address of your post. Your post will automatically be linked to mine leaving a list for all to peruse. I hope you will join us.**

This week's post is dedicated to Dr. Seuss. His birthday was on Monday and he is by far one of the best authors in children's literature. Here are some possibly little know facts about the author.

His true name was Theodor Seuss Geisel and he used the pen name Theo. LeSieg (Geisel spelled backwards) for books he wrote but others illustrated such as I Wish that I Had Duck Feet and Ten Apples Up on Top.

• Originally he was a political cartoonist.


• Geisel wrote most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, a poetic meter also employed by many poets of the English literary canon.


• Though Geisel made a point of not beginning the writing of his stories with a moral in mind, stating that "kids can see a moral coming a mile off", he was not against writing about issues--social, environmental or political.

The book I'd like to highlight today is his first, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, written in 1937. It begins with a boy named Marco who comes up with an elaborate scene of what he saw on the way home from school. First it is a horse drawn wagon, but quickly escalates into a full blown parade with confetti, a band, a magician doing tricks, the mayor is there and the policemen lead the way when traffic is thick. The excitement just builds and builds. You cna hardly stand it as Marco rushes up the steps to his house. However, in the end Marco pulls up a chair and tells his father the truth--it was just a plain horse and wagon on Mulberry Street.

More fun trivia: "Mulberry Street" is the name of a street in Springfield, Massachusetts, not far from Dr. Seuss' boyhood home on Fairfield Street, and may be the source of the book's name.

Happy Suess Week from the Hills!