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Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Caroons of Theodor Seuss Geisel

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This collection of over two hundred wartime editorial cartoons of Dr. Seuss may surprise readers more familiar with his postwar children’s books. Appearing in the New Deal-tinged New York newspaper PM in 1941 and 1942. The drawing style and fantasy in the cartoons are clearly Seussian. However, instead of the pure whimsy of cultural icons such as The Cat in the Hat, Horton, or The Grinch That Stole Christmas, the wartime cartoon are blatantly didactic, if not propagandistic. Many cartoons ridicule the enemy with wildly implausible scenes that cannot fail lo provoke laughter. Others, such as one depicting Jews hanging in trees are visually too violent to evoke anything but black humor.