New Dr. Seuss Work Hits The Bookstores

For the sandbox set, it was a major literary event - and for bookstore owners a relief.

“Thank goodness for a book that isn’t about sex or O.J.,” said William Rickman, president of Kroch’s & Brentano’s, as a truck wheeled in first-day copies of “Daisy-Head Mayzie,” a newly discovered tale of classmate taunts, parental dismay and the greed of a publicity agent.

While purists sniffed that this is not his best work, others predicted an instant classic, based on the track record of the author, a master of wit and archness, Theodor Seuss Geisel, who died in 1991 in his hilltop home at La Jolla, high above the Pacific Ocean on the southern coast of California.

He was better known as Dr. Seuss.

“It’s going to sell a lot of copies,” said Andy Laties, owner of The Children’s Bookstore. “When a powerhouse like Theodor Geisel dies, people will resurrect whatever they can. But this piece is strong. It was a completed piece.”

The first new Seuss book published in four years, it introduces Mayzie, a flower-child, to a world that dances with the Cat in the Hat, where an elephant named Horton hears a Who and a sleeping child dreams of Green Eggs and Ham.

Considered by many to be the world’s most-loved children’s author, Seuss left the manuscript in a drawer where it was accidentally found by his widow, Audrey, as she cleaned house after his death.

“On Monday, we shipped 250,000 copies out the door,” noted Kelly Grunther of Random House in New York, Dr. Seuss’ longtime publisher. “The first ones went to the West Coast so they’d all arrive in bookstores across the country on the same day.” That “lay-down date,” as they say in the publishing game, was Wednesday - and Geisel couldn’t be happier.

“I’m perfectly delighted with it,” Geisel said, in a statement issued from her home in California. “There’s a sweetness about this little girl and there certainly is a great deal of mystique to one little daisy dealing with expressions of every known emotion. The book brings out your values.”

The work, originally written as a screenplay 20 years ago, then abandoned, was tucked away and forgotten. Geisel’s widow was cleaning out a drawer, she said, and “it popped up like the daisy. It came as such a surprise.”

According to a plot synopsis released by Random House, the text tells of “Mayzie McGraw, who wakes up one morning to find that a daisy has sprouted from the top of her head. Mayzie faces classmates’ taunts, her parents’ dismay and a publicity agent’s greed. She triumphs at last with the hard-won knowledge that love is more important than fame and glory.”

“His humor and wit appeals to both adults and children. His books aren’t sappy. They are outrageous. They have bouncy irreverent characters who are bad - and that appeals,” said Laties of The Children’s Bookstore, whose own personal favorite - he has read all the titles - is “Green Eggs and Ham.”

The son of a western Massachusetts brewer who ran a zoo during Prohibition, Geisel wanted to write serious novels. His first outing, “The Seven Lady Godivas,” was a flop. His book for children, “Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” in 1937, was a runaway hit. So he shifted focus.

The 48 children’s books that Geisel subsequently wrote and illustrated as Dr. Seuss have sold 200 million copies in more than 20 languages. He wrote others under different names, among them Theo LeSeig. An animated special based on “DaisyHead Mayzie” will be shown Feb. 5 on Turner Network Television.