Newly discovered Dr. Seuss book to be published in July
In what has already been quite the month for new books from authors most thought we’d never hear from again, Random House has revealed that on 28 July it will publish What Pet Should I Get? – a ‘new’ book by Dr. Seuss. The manuscript for the book was rediscovered in 2013 by Seuss’ widow, Audrey Geisel, and his secretary, Claudia Prescott, in a box at his San Diego home, having originally been set aside shortly after his death in 1991. Also present in the box was enough unpublished material to sustain at least two further books.
According to Cathy Goldsmith, vice president and associate publishing director of Random House’s children’s division, What Pet Should I Get? features the same brother and sister from Seuss’ One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (published in 1960), which would most likely place it as having been written at some point between 1958 and 1962.
Goldsmith worked with Seuss (a.k.a. Theodore Geisel) on Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, the last of his books to be published in his lifetime (in January 1990). She will personally oversee the colouring of his black and white line drawings, saying ‘I know he is looking down, watching over the process, and I feel a tremendous responsibility to do everything just as he would have done himself’.
Seuss is one of the most widely beloved children’s authors of all time, responsible for writing and illustrating classics including The Lorax, The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Horton Hears A Who! and several others not turned into hugely underwhelming films. If that isn’t enough to get you excited for What Pet Should I Get?, well, Pharrell Williams just signed a deal to write four picture books, the first of which is based around “Happy” (no, you’re not getting a link to it, you’ve already heard it more than enough), so have fun with that.
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