
I Can Read It All by Myself
The Beginner Books Story
Paul V. Allen(Author)
University Press of Mississippi
Published on 30. May 2021
Book
Hardback
366 pages
978-1-4968-3404-1 (ISBN)
Description
In the late 1950s, Ted Geisel took on the challenge of creating a book using only 250 unique first-grade words, something that aspiring readers would have both the ability and the desire to read. The result was an unlikely children's classic, The Cat in the Hat. But Geisel didn't stop there. Using The Cat in the Hat as a template, he teamed with Helen Geisel and Phyllis Cerf to create Beginner Books, a whole new category of readers that combined research-based literacy practices with the logical insanity of Dr. Seuss.
The books were an enormous success, giving the world such authors and illustrators as P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Stan and Jan Berenstain, and beloved bestsellers such as Are You My Mother?; Go, Dog. Go!; Put Me in the Zoo; and Green Eggs and Ham.
The story of Beginner Books-and Ted Geisel's role as ""president, policymaker, and editor"" of the line for thirty years-has been told briefly in various biographies of Dr. Seuss, but I Can Read It All by Myself: The Beginner Books Story presents it in full detail for the first time. Drawn from archival research and dozens of brand-new interviews, I Can Read It All by Myself explores the origins, philosophies, and operations of Beginner Books from The Cat in the Hat in 1957 to 2019's A Skunk in My Bunk, and reveals the often-fascinating lives of the writers and illustrators who created them.
The books were an enormous success, giving the world such authors and illustrators as P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Stan and Jan Berenstain, and beloved bestsellers such as Are You My Mother?; Go, Dog. Go!; Put Me in the Zoo; and Green Eggs and Ham.
The story of Beginner Books-and Ted Geisel's role as ""president, policymaker, and editor"" of the line for thirty years-has been told briefly in various biographies of Dr. Seuss, but I Can Read It All by Myself: The Beginner Books Story presents it in full detail for the first time. Drawn from archival research and dozens of brand-new interviews, I Can Read It All by Myself explores the origins, philosophies, and operations of Beginner Books from The Cat in the Hat in 1957 to 2019's A Skunk in My Bunk, and reveals the often-fascinating lives of the writers and illustrators who created them.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Jackson
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
47 black & white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
784 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4968-3404-1 (9781496834041)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2021
Princeton University Press
€24.49
Available for download
Person
Paul V. Allen is a literacy specialist at the elementary school level. He is author of The Hopefuls: Chasing a Rock 'n' Roll Dream in the Minnesota Music Scene, I Can Read It All by Myself: The Beginner Books Story, and Eleanor Cameron: Dimensions of Amazement, the latter two published by University Press of Mississippi.