Welcome to Diffendoofer school. Meet the art teacher, Mr. Beeze. He paints pictures while hanging by his knees. You'll love Miss Bonkers: "She even teaches frogs to dance/ And pigs to put on underpants."
Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! (Knopf) is a new Dr. Seuss book. Seuss had a little help from two popular kids'-book creators: poet Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith, who illustrated The Stinky Cheese Man.
Dr. Seuss, whose real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, died in 1991. He wrote and illustrated 48 children's books. Important lessons about life are hidden in his zany stories and fanciful drawings.
Ten years ago, Seuss told his editor, Janet Schulman, that he was working on a book about a school. "But I'm not sure if teachers will like it," he said. Seuss never finished the tale. So Schulman handed the project--just a few verses and sketches--over to Prelutsky and Smith, who have never met.
Prelutsky finished the delightful rhyming tale about a school with its own rules. He tried to imagine how Seuss would have pictured the school janitor or principal. "I pretended Seuss was sitting next to me, looking over my shoulder," he says.
Then Prelutsky sent the story to Smith. Smith says he was nervous about picking up where Seuss left off "because I was always such a really huge Seuss fan. But I knew I could do it right."
In the illustrations, Smith mixed collages of Seuss's sketches for the story with his own funky paintings. He thinks that students and teachers will like the new book. It celebrates the fun of learning: "The kids aren't sure, but they're definitely learning."
Would Dr. Seuss like the book? Says Prelutsky, all excited/ "I think that he'd be delighted!"