Description
““Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is vintage Seuss, an anything-but-solemn illustrated sermon on the thrills and adventures that await you on the road to success in life. Of course, the doctor points out the pitfalls as well as the summits. But in the end all comes out right, as that young pajama-clad Seussian hero triumphs over the delightfully fearsome pictorial creatures that bestrew this way.” — Herb Kupferberg’s May 1990 syndicated conversation with Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss’s iconic cover image has become synonymous with the ideals outlined in Kupferberg’s statement above. The fact that it graces the cover of his last book has catapulted the image into the public conscious at a level beyond that of nearly any other Seussian graphic.
It is fitting then that his last cover image would come full circle as an autobiographical illustration of his own life, as well as a forward-reaching symbol for generations of young adults. As Dr. Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, said about Oh, the Places You’ll Go! — “I think he was intending it to be the summation of his own life. He was taking everything he knew and put it into the life voyage of this particular little boy.”
