Author, illustrator, editor, and publisher, Dr. Seuss revolutionized materials directed at young readers by introducing humorous, rhymed, and colorful books using limited vocabularies and simple, appealing illustrations. Uniquely inventive in the annals of twentieth-century children's books, Seuss openly acknowledged that helping to kill off the predictable "Dick and Jane" primers of the 1950s was one of his proudest accomplishments. The bizarre creatures of his stories, which contained subtle moral messages that could be read on different levels, often acted with what their author termed "logical insanity." For example, if an animal had two heads, he must also have two toothbrushes.

Twice-married but childless, Seuss had not started out to be a children's book innovator. He was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of a German immigrant who ran a brewery until the arrival of Prohibition. He later commented that his father...