Dr. Seuss: As colorful as his characters

The opening of “Horton Hears a Who!” gives us the opportunity to talk about one of our nation’s most fascinating writers: Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.

Not only do his more than 40 books have crazy rhyme structures, occasionally incorporate only 250 words, and those specifically sway-ey drawings (many of the plants were inspired by the succulents at the San Diego Zoo, we once learned), the author also had a political agenda that worked itself into some of his silliest-sounding books. And so despite writing for kids, he got to voice his opinion on dictatorships, nuclear proliferation and participatory democracy.