Dr. Seuss gets posthumous front page

At last, the pseudo-controversy over Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" — was it a draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird?" — may move over for a genuine undiscovered book that reveals the author's greatness.

The book section of yesterday's New York Times (july 26) gives the entire front page to the heretofore closeted children's book by La Jolla's Ted (Dr. Seuss) Geisel, who died in 1991. His book, "What Pet Should I Get?" has been published by Random House. Apparently, the book had been lying in the Geisel residence all this time.

Reviewer Maria Russo writes that "the book is, if not top-flight Seuss, a very good example of his particular genius of distilling both the spirit of the times and the timeless mind-set of children." Any parent who has spent hours and hours reading Seuss to children would agree.

Continued Russo, "With its galloping anapests, cockamamie creatures, and kids off on an everyday adventure that turns hallucinogenic, this late arrival will slip easily into the collection that changed how Americans learned to read."