Birthday treats for classmates

Happy Birthday to Theodor Seuss Geisel, the beloved Dr. Seuss! Today he would have been 108. Imagine how many books he could have written! As it was he wrote over 60 books, 46 were published as Dr. Seuss and the remainder under pen names. He’s been published in 15 different languages and sold over 222 million copies! (I ♥ Wikipedia)

Did you know…

Geisel attended Dartmouth College as a member of the Class of 1925. At Dartmouth, he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, eventually rising to the rank of editor-in-chief.

While at Dartmouth, Geisel was caught drinking gin with nine friends in his room. As a result, Dean Craven Laycock insisted that he resign from all extracurricular activities, including the college humor magazine. To continue work on the Jack-O-Lantern without the administration’s knowledge, Geisel began signing his work with the pen name “Seuss”.

Or that…

Geisel’s pen name is regularly pronounced /ˈsjuːs/ SEWSS, an anglicized pronunciation inconsistent with his German surname. He himself noted that it rhymed with “voice” (his own pronunciation being /ˈsɔɪs/ SOYSS) and Alexander Liang (his collaborator on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern) wrote of him:

You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice[37] (or Zoice[38])

Geisel switched to the anglicized pronunciation because it “evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children’s books to be associated with—Mother Goose” and because most people used this pronunciation.

To celebrate this day we decided to make treats to bring to school. We thought long and hard about treats that could be made quickly (I just realized it was his birthday about two days ago!) and treats that were portable and could be brought to school unannounced :) I didn’t want to show up with a giant Cat in the Hat cake and have their teachers hate me forever! We decided on Goldfish in baggies. I wanted to mix in some chocolate graham goldfish, or maybe swedish fish or something, but our local Co-op had limited options so we stuck to plain, rainbow, and pretzel fish. Then we made tags and stapled them on top.

These are going to school this morning. Do you think they will be well received?

The paper tags are two-sided. We made enough for both classes, plus some extras for teachers and others.

Happy children. (whatever happened to my adorable babies? my kids look like wild hooligans these days!)

Eve insisted on taking a picture of me as well.