Emerging Voices
Michelle Abate, editor
A Transformative Biblical Encounter: The Garden of Eden in How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Julia Pond
Julia Pond is a doctoral student at Illinois State University where she teaches children’s literature and writing classes. Her dissertation spans both fields of children’s literature and Southern (USA) literature by considering how Southern adolescents are acculturated through literature of multiple genres into Southern identities.
Theodore Seuss Geisel’s extensive repertoire of children’s books established the German-descended author and illustrator as a classic American icon, as demonstrated by Philip Nel in his book-length study Dr. Seuss: American Icon. His work and authorship have been repeatedly honored through such awards as seven honorary doctorate degrees, an Oscar (1951), two Emmys (1977 and 1982), a Pulitzer Prize (1984), a Peabody (1971), and three Caldecott Honor Awards (1947, 1949, 1950) (“Later Years” n.pag.). Initiated into the children’s book market with And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (1937), Dr. Seuss soon published a book a year on average, some designed for entertainment, some designed to teach children to read, and some designed as moral fables. In 1976, Thomas Burns argued that “Certainly Geisel’s work is not created for multi-level readings, but it is worth noting that adults as much as children enjoy the Seuss books” (192). Now, eighteen years after his death, critics have widely established that Seuss intentionally incorporated specific ideologies into many of his texts, and this recognition has reached non-academic audiences. Ron Howard, the director of the feature-length adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas recognizes, “ ‘He’s a modern fabulist,’ Howard says. ‘He wrote lots of contemporary fables, usually with an innocent child in the center as a truth teller’ ” (“How” n.pag.). The acceptance of Seuss as fabulist grew in part from the studies done on his World War II cartoons by such authors as Richard H. Minear, with Dr. Seuss Goes to War, and Philip Nel, with “Children’s Literature Goes to War” and “ ‘Said a bird in the midst of a blitz’: How World War II Created Dr. Seuss.” Readings of such books as The Lorax and The Butter Battle Book as political fables have encouraged Seuss scholars to accept the political and moral purposes of his children’s books. [1] Seuss’s ideology appears throughout his books, and Seuss unabashedly admits that he created some texts with didactic morals even as many readers enjoy Dr. Seuss simply as a successful and creative entertainer. In speaking of his environmentalist text, The Lorax, Seuss explains, “The Lorax book was intended to be propaganda” (Frutig 80). In discussing his “bigger books,” Seuss claims also that “ ‘There are several levels,’ he says of the story line; ‘most are satires on satires. I also have the parents in mind’ ” (Frutig 79). Besides promising him success, this attention to his art also explains his “extensive rhetorical arsenal, including puns, hyperbole and deflation, neologisms, chiasms […], polyptotons […], as well as allegory, parable, fable, and quest romance” (Wolosky 168-9). Clearly, Seuss’s stories warrant serious literary analysis for their layered meanings and the intentionality of their crafting.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas remains one Seuss story that receives critical attention with regards to a possible moral. The Grinch excelled in book sales, and once made into a televised special in 1966, the animated version propelled Seuss’s Christmas story to worldwide recognition and popularity. This success drew attention to the story’s ideology, attention focused on the story’s topic. Written about a traditionally Christian holiday, The Grinch often inspires studies on its religiosity. The majority of this research, such as Burns’s and Wolosky’s [2] however, finds that Seuss subtly skirted the religious implications of the widely celebrated holiday, instead focusing on commercialism, the community, and the thankfulness that Christmas promotes. In translating the book into its famous animated version, and “To resolve Ted’s concern that the story end in a way that was not trite or overly religious, the script called for a star to rise to the heavens (rather than drop from the sky) to emphasize the power of the heart” (“Later Years” n.pag.). But although How the Grinch Stole Christmas does not contain any overtly Christian messages, the book, extended and intensified by the animated television special, does employ Biblical imagery. This imagery serves to characterize the Grinch and the Whos and to create parallelism between Seuss’s Christmas story and Genesis’s story of the loss of innocence.
In 1957, twenty years after his first children’s book publication, Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas appeared in the December issue of Redbook as well as on book shelves, selling over 50,000 copies (Edwards n.pag.). The story, featuring a distinctly unpleasant Seuss character, the Grinch, found immediate interpretation as a commentary against the commercialization of Christmas. Critics such as Thomas Burns strengthened this secular reading by arguing for Seuss’s exclusion of any overt Christian symbolism:
Geisel has systematically excluded any verbal or visual symbols that might directly refer to the Christian religion. There is no church, no Christ child, no manger scene, no angles, no lamb, no wise men, no shepherds, no Mary or Joseph and no cross. Even the lyrics of the Who’s communal song make no reference to the Christmas event, only to its joyous celebration. In line with this areful exclusion of any direct religious reference, the story itself avoids defining what the “something more” is that is the meaning of Christmas the Grinch is said in the end to come to realize. (196
Burns admits to two exceptions when “only twice does the symbolism in the Grinch animation even rub elbows with Christian symbolism” in the star ornament topping the Who’s Christmas tree and in a “verbal simile” when the Grinch hears Cindy-Lou Who make a small sound like a dove’s cooing (196). This argument falters, however, as he confuses Christmas symbolism with Christian symbolism. Although Seuss avoids Christian aspects of the Christmas holiday, such as those listed above, he still employs Christian imagery and symbolism throughout the story, two instances of which Burns admits. But two much greater and more important instances of Christian imagery appear that Burns misses. First, Seuss characterizes the Grinch as revealing Satanic proclivities, and second, Seuss reflects Satan’s encounter with Eve at the Tree of Knowledge in the Grinch’s encounter with Cindy-Lou Who at her Christmas tree.
The Grinch’s Satanic characterization begins on the book’s cover. Here, Seuss illustrates the Grinch with red eyes, a malevolent smile, and hands in motion that seem to meet at the fingertips, a movement expressing thought over a delightfully sinister plan. The Grinch’s red eyes remain an important detail throughout the book, as Ruth MacDonald also notes: “All the details here underscore the coldness and distance of [the Grinch’s] habitat, and his pink eyes, the only colored detail in several of the pictures of him, make them look blood shot and particularly misanthropic” (95). The importance of this color on the black and white page demonstrates Perry Nodelman’s argument that “The mere presence of a vivid color is so likely to give weight to visual objects that illustrators forced to work within the constraints of one- or two-color printing almost always use it to focus on the significant details of otherwise colorless pictures” (142). In designing The Grinch, Seuss worked with two-color printing, and for this reason, his choice of color remains significant. On the book’s title page, the Grinch’s characterization grows further disturbing as readers view the Who’s Christmas tree in black and white, while the Grinch peers at them from behind the tree with almond-shaped red eyes. In this illustration, only the Grinch’s head and neck are visible, lending the Grinch a serpentine shape. This drawing furthers the story’s Biblical illusions in several ways. Here, the Grinch, depicted as a Satanic serpent, slyly exposes himself while still partially hidden behind a tree covered with round Christmas ornaments. This picture recalls Satan’s role in Genesis’ Garden of Eden.
In the New International Version’s translation of Genesis, Adam and Eve’s encounter with Satan revolves around God’s law concerning the tree “that is in the middle of the garden,” or the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (3.3). As Adam and Eve enjoy the paradise God has provided them in the Garden, God holds them to a single rule: “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die” (Gen. 3.3). Genesis explains that “the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made,” and the serpent convinces Eve to eat the fruit of this forbidden tree (Gen. 3.1). Of course, the importance of this history for Christians and Jews is to explain how sin and death entered the world, two aspects of life that we still struggle against today. The visual depictions of this narrative usually include a bountiful apple tree from which Adam and Eve enjoy fruit and upon whose truck clings the Satanic serpent, the master deceiver. Julyan Notary’s 1503 woodcut in his Legenda Aurea series exemplifies this common depiction. Here, the serpent appears entwined around the Tree of Knowledge, his mouth meeting Eve’s hand to transfer the apple (Hodnett n.pag.). Seuss’s opening depiction of the Grinch closely resembles such depictions of the fall and strongly characterizes the Grinch as Satanic.
This proclivity toward deception further appears in the Grinch’s master plan to rob the Whos of Christmas. He accomplishes his theft by assuming the disguise of Santa Claus, complete with a red hat and coat and an artificial reindeer in his dog, Max. MacDonald also notices the parallels between the Grinch and Satan in their deceiving natures as she states, “Though the Grinch dresses up as St. Nick, he is closer to Old Nick, or Satan, in his attitude toward the Whos and Christmas” (97). Not only does the Grinch conceive and carry out his horrific plan, but he takes great pleasure in it. This pleasure appears on his face in each picture throughout the thieving. Each illustration shows him with red eyes and a self-satisfied smile, completing the dirty work. The text supports the drawings by describing the Grinch as grinning “with a smile most unpleasant” as he steals Christmas “with glee” (n.pag.). In particular, when the Grinch packs up Cindy-Lou’s house, shown with the Grinch on the left-hand page with two stuffed sacks pulling the Christmas lights down from the ceiling while the Whos on the right-hand page slumber naively and peacefully, Seuss depicts a joyful Grinch. His smile and red eyes remain prevalent, but his eyes tilt downward at the corners, and his eyebrows are raised, giving him a blissful look as he enjoys robbing the Whos of their pleasures. This deception, however, grows to overt lying when the Grinch encounters Cindy-Lou Who: “The Grinch proves a natural at thieving, even lying to little Cindy Loo Who about his intentions as he stuffs the family tree up the chimney” (“How the Grinch” n.pag.). This brief conversation with Cindy-Lou fully reveals the Grinch’s Satanic nature.
As a master deceiver, the Grinch proves adept at lying. When Cindy-Lou catches the Grinch in the act of stealing her family’s Christmas, she asks the Grinch, “Santy Claus, why, / Why are you taking our Christmas tree? WHY?” (Seuss n.pag.). But the Grinch escapes his inquisitor, as the narrator explains: “that old Grinch was so smart and so slick / He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick” (Seuss n.pag.). As the Satanic figure, the Grinch finds it natural to resort to a lie when caught in his sin. MacDonald agrees: “In fact, it is the grinch’s ability to fabricate all sorts of things – lies, reindeer antlers for Max, a Santa Claus suit for himself – that defines his particular brand of demonry” (97). The Grinch is not simply a villain; he is a deceiver, and “the success of the Grinch’s lie is all the more despicable for the delight he takes in fooling the child who is portrayed as very small, sweet, and innocent” (Burns 201). The child to whom the Grinch lies, Cindy-Lou Who, leads us to the second important instance of Biblical imagery found in Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas: the encounter between Satan and the innocent.
Seuss’s Cindy-Lou strongly parallels Genesis’ Eve as she meets Satan in the Garden. Now, Seuss’s story follows the Grinch; the story concerns his transformation, so Seuss enjoys the liberty of remaining faithful to Satan’s characteristics while deviating in his creation of Eve in Cindy-Lou. Although Cindy-Lou does not face or give into temptation, she serves as the catalyst for the Grinch’s encounter with innocence. In addition, Seuss’s protagonist does not initiate Cindy-Lou into knowledge, as Satan does with Eve, but Seuss uses these Biblical allusions characterize the Grinch and the Whos, rather than recreating the Garden of Eden story. Through their encounter, the Grinch appears all the more evil, and the Whos, represented by Cindy-Lou, appear innocent and naïve in their paradisiacal community. As Burns explains, “Whoville is visually and verbally portrayed as a group of closely placed homes in a valley, as a community in spirit and action, as warm, as lighted, as busy, as noisy, and as joyous. By contrast the Grinch is characterized as living in a cave up on the side of Mount Crumpit, as living alone, as being sour, and as living in a domain that is cold, quiet, and dark” (200). The Grinch envies the Whos their happiness and particularly despises the Whos’ singing and feasting – actions that represent their community and celebration, a community to which he remains an outsider. Whoville appears in these scenes a Christmas paradise full of giving, sharing, and celebrating.
Although the Grinch fails to follow his satanic predecessor’s lead in initiating an innocent to knowledge, his deception, in some ways, proves even worse. The Grinch keeps Cindy-Lou an innocent by lying, doing so not with good intentions but with the desire to finish his job without detection so as to create a stronger negative impact when he finishes stealing Christmas: “That the Grinch has taken advantage of [Cindy-Lou’s] innocence is further compounded by his getting her a drink and sending her back to bed, contented and reassured, to dream more ‘sweet dreams without care,’ little suspecting the depth of his treachery” (MacDonald 96-7). Where Seuss deviates from Genesis’ plot, he strengthens the polarities in characterization between the evil Grinch and the peaceful Whos.
With the television special’s extended story line and animation of the Grinch’s story, these instances of Biblical imagery further intensify. Chuck Jones, the animator famous for such creations as Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, first worked with Seuss in the Army between 1943 and 1945 (Kowalski n.pag.). There, the two illustrators drew Private Snafu cartoons “about a goof-up soldier made by Warner Bros” and worked on training videos (Kowalski n.pag.). Early in 1966, Jones approached Seuss about creating a televised, animated special, but Seuss remained wary. Only after a personal visit and Seuss’s wife, Helen’s, endorsement did he agree. The two old friends decided on The Grinch for their experiment (Morgan 189). With MGM as his current employer, “Jones used the full-animation technique adopted by Disney; unlike most cartoons of the era, with about two thousand drawings per show, The Grinch required about twenty-five thousand” (Morgan 189-90). Although the primary animator, Jones kept Seuss intimately involved in the process so that the resulting animation consisted of a mixture of both illustrators’ styles. For the Grinch himself, “a primary challenge was to take a mean Grinch and make him even meaner” (Morgan 190). Jones explains that they attempted this intensification by bringing the Grinch’s “mouth clear down, so when he gets that horrible idea of making Santa Claus’s rounds, it was like a rock thrown into a lava bed; it just kept spreading and spreading evil” (qtd. in Morgan 190). The enterprise succeeded, and on December 18, 1966, thirty-eight million viewers enjoyed the first airing of the animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas on CBS-TV (Kowalski n.pag.). The televised version remains a Christmas classic, and the feature-length film starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch only heightened the story’s popularity further.
The television special continues and extends the Grinch’s depiction as the story’s Satan. The animated Grinch retains his startling red eyes, but as he opens his mouth to speak at the beginning of the film, the Grinch also reveals crooked, cracked teeth, symbolizing the character’s depravity and spiritual decay. The Grinch’s animators also took advantage of their genre by using camera angles to view the Grinch from below in his introduction, showing the Grinch towering over his audience, looming and frightening. This characterization continues as the television special fleshes out the story’s details, for instance by allowing viewers a look into the Grinch’s cave. Here, we see a cave lit by firelight, reminiscent of the fires of Hell, and a large throne-shaped bed dressed in purple fabric. The Grinch appears to perceive himself as a prince of something, and his dwelling suggests a dark, sinister kingdom. As each of these details appears at the opening of the televised special, they serve to characterize the Grinch immediately as a Satanic figure.
As the special continues, the animation builds upon the book’s imagery. For instance, when the Grinch moves into Whoville to begin his theft of Christmas, viewers see the Grinch emerge from a chimney into a Who’s home eyes first. For a moment, all we see are his almond-shaped eyes staring out from the fireplace’s darkness. When he then emerges, the Grinch slithers, snake-like, around the house and directly up into the Christmas tree, decorated with red balls. As the book first suggests through this symbolism, the Grinch’s serpentine qualities and his presence in the tree strongly suggests his role as Satan in the Garden of Eden. As the Grinch steals the tree, a single red ball falls and rolls across the floor, stopping at Cindy-Lou Who’s bare feet. Cindy-Lou picks up the ball, an ornament almost bigger than she, and confronts the Grinch as she does in Seuss’s book. The gigantic red ball, having originated in the tree, dominates the scene and accomplishes Seuss’s allusion once again. As Cindy-Lou picks up the red ball, readers see Eve in the Garden of Eden, holding her temping apple.
Both versions of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas clearly contain Biblical imagery and symbolism. Critics such as Burns, however, still fail to recognize the importance of this imagery in their hurried attempts to dismiss the intersections among Dr. Seuss and religion. Burns argues, “The Grinch That Stole Christmas clearly steers a course away from any symbolism that would necessarily link the events of the story with Christian mythology” (196). In his anxiety to ignore religious messages, Burns reads the text narrowly, also ignoring the foundational Biblical imagery directly related to “Christian mythology.” Burns continues to note as well that “the animated Grinch is a marvelous example of the skillful use of the secondary, secularly associated and ‘pagan’ derived symbolism of the Christmas celebration to make a statement in harmony with Christian ethics but not supportive of Christianity as a religion” (196). This less extreme statement recognizes with more care that Seuss does not directly support Christianity through this text. Although using Biblical imagery in telling a story about a Christian holiday, Seuss specifically worked to avoid a religious message. During an interview with George Kane, Seuss explains, “A kid […] is a very sophisticated market […] I spent three months on the last page of The Grinch. It kept turning into a religious tract” (qtd. in Kane 60). As Seuss avoids promoting Christianity, he achieves promotion of his own philosophy through Biblical imagery.
Shira Wolosky recognizes that “What Dr. Seuss’s more than forty books in effect provide is not only a mode of American poetics, but also a civic instruction closely associated with it. Dr. Seuss thus initiates young Americans into their cultural heritage” (167). Dr. Seuss writes not only for entertainment but also to teach children something specifically associated with American culture. Wolosky further explains that Dr. Seuss “wants to invent lessons in liberal-democratic culture, which would display and urge the central importance of the individual” (168). This understanding of Seuss’s ideology describes The Grinch, a book that closely follows the acculturation of the individual into a community. As briefly stated above, The Grinch concerns the protagonist’s transformation, and all aspects of the book serve to tell his story and to follow his change of heart. Readers learn little of Whoville and its inhabitants while the Grinch receives close attention and detailed characterization. The narrator tells readers that the Grinch has “put up with” the Whos celebrating Christmas for fifty-three years; he explains that the Grinch’s heart is exactly “two sizes too small;” he describes how the Grinch puzzles over the Who’s celebration without presents for “three hours” (n.pag.). Readers close their books with a much deeper understanding of this character than they have of the Whos. His story reflects Seuss’s philosophy that “the individual remains the moral center. His willingness to be accountable, to answer to others and for himself in mutual respect, is the offered antidote against the self as devouring, as aggressive, as reductive” (Wolosky 182). The Grinch must learn to respect and to understand the community as he remains in danger of self consumption. His alienation from society engenders in him aggression and hatred for the group of which he cannot be a part. He transforms into a better version of himself through his recognition of support and joy originating in community, as depicted in the Whos’ communal singing, the “something / He liked least of all” (n.pag.). Wolosky further describes Seuss’s message: “at some point the pursuit of individual happiness may become a mode of self-assertion in conflict with others; while self-assertion may generate pursuits that are finally destructive of others, of the world, and ultimately of the self itself” (177). While importance falls on the individual and his growth, at times this growth may only occur as the individual conforms to a community. Total self-absorption can lead to personal destruction, as the Grinch demonstrates with his evil plans; we can only wonder what further emotional damage he could have caused himself if he had allowed the burdened sled to fall over the precipice, destroying the Whos’ Christmas completely. Therefore, as Burns recognizes, “In carefully avoiding the necessity for a Christian religious interpretation for the story and yet in leaving the ‘something more’ of the story only generally specified so that Christian religious notions can be brought in to illuminate the story’s significance, Geisel has created a story that can appeal to a broad, popular audience” (199-200). And How the Grinch Stole Christmas definitely appeals to a wide audience, but Seuss includes elements that can be read through the lens of Biblical iconography and the Garden of Eden story for another central reason as well.
Just as Seuss uses imagery and symbolism for characterization – the Grinch as Satan and the Whos as innocents – he also uses this allusion to place emphasis on the magnitude of the Grinch’s final transformation. For, by portraying the Grinch as the ultimate representation of evil, Satan, and then devising a Garden of Eden scene in which this Satan encounters the innocent Eve in Cindy-Lou, Dr. Seuss calls readers’ attentions to the Biblical story of Satan’s destruction through temptation of the human race’s bliss in paradise, the ultimate malevolent act. The Grinch, therefore, finds himself in this same situation with the same characterization, but somehow, the book ends happily. The change that takes place within the Grinch from master deceiver to content community member constitutes an enormous shift. The Whos, only indirectly responsible for the change, openly welcome the repentant Grinch who has recognized the value of community. How the change takes place, or what force engages the transformation, remains unclear. All we know is that the Whos’ singing causes the Grinch to think about Christmas: “Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! / ‘Maybe Christmas,’ he thought, ‘doesn’t come from a store. / Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!’ ” (n.pag.). But the parallels drawn between the Garden of Eden and the Grinch’s conversation with Cindy-Lou reveal how important, unlikely, and singular this transformation really is. The extremity of the change, however, also communicates its possibility. The book offers hope for redemption, no matter the extent.
By continuing to search for additional parallels drawn with the Garden of Eden, readers could wonder if Dr. Seuss meant to include the Grinch in the Who’s ignorant bliss and whether Seuss finds this naivety a better alternative to knowledge. But I believe this reading overextended as Seuss appears to draw connections between the stories for very specific reasons. Just as he does not create a Christmas nativity allegory in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, neither does Seuss intend his book as a complete allegory of the Garden of Eden. In addition, many writers have made much of the obvious parallels between the Grinch and Dr. Seuss himself. MacDonald notes that “There is a certain good-natured self-abuse here, but the spirit of the Grinch is clearly present in his creator, the sometimes recluse who hates noise, merriment, singing, public festivities, and base materialism in any form” (93). And as Bob Edwards pointed out on his National Public Radio profile of Dr. Seuss, Seuss and the Grinch share the same age, and Seuss lived at the top of Mt. Soledad while the Grinch inhabited a cave at the top of Mt. Crumpet. But even these similarities should not overwhelm the book’s message. Seuss did not conceive of himself as Satan or intend for the Grinch to embody a shy children’s book author either. Instead, Seuss chose symbolism and imagery from several places in several forms and used it however it suited his story best. Rather than forcing a specific reading of Seuss’s ideologies or religious views upon his work, readers do better to recognize his wide use of symbolism, allegory, imagery, parallelism, and dedication to fun to create books suited for kids.
Recognizing and unpacking these Biblical elements in Seuss’s text continues the work of the scholars who seek to demonstrate the literary qualities of these picture books. Just as critics have agreed upon the multiple interpretive layers of The Butter Battle Book and The Lorax, so too does How the Grinch Stole Christmas belong among those Seuss books worthy of literary study. Here readers find intertextuality and allusion in a book at times dismissed as a simple, yet treasured, Christmas tradition. In addition, Seuss’s characterization of the Grinch as a Satanic figure teaches us more about this author. For instance, we learn of Seuss’s respect for child readers. Rather than patronize, Seuss offers a nuanced story that does not avoid possibly fearful topics in exchange for an easy read. Instead, this author takes an age-old motif and rebuilds it to create a much-beloved villain for our time. Additionally, The Grinch reveals more of Seuss’s social and political beliefs. Through it, we can see the value he places on community as well as the hope he retains for wayward individuals. With such lessons revealed, Seuss’s work makes their claims as texts that benefit from continued literary study.
Notes
1. In addition to the works listed in the text, for analysis of the Seuss repertoire as political fables, see Art Spiegelman’s article “Horton Hears a Heil,” New Yorker (12 July 1999): 62-3.
2. Although Wolosky offers a convincing article discussing Seuss’s ideology concerning the individual and his place in community, she does not apply her theory to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. She refers to this Seuss book only once in explaining that “His concern with commercialism surfaces in How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (178).
Works Cited
Burns, Thomas. “Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Its Recent Acceptance into the American Popular Christmas Tradition.” New York Folklore Quarterly 2 (1976): 191- 204. Print.
Fensch, Thomas, ed. Of Sneeches and Whos and the Good Dr. Seuss: Essays on the Writings and Life of Theodor Geisel. Jefferson: McFarland, 1997. Print.
Frutig, Judith. “Dr. Seuss’s Green-Eggs-and-Ham World.” Fensch 77-81. Print.
Geisel, Theodore Seuss. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. New York: Random House. 1957. Print.
---. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Redbook Magazine 110.2 (December 1957): 56-64. Print.
Goodale, Gloria. “How ‘Grinch’ leaped off the pages and onto the screen.” Christian Science Monitor 92.251 (17 Nov. 2000): 16. Print.
Hodnett, Edward. English Woodcuts 1480-1535. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973. Print.The Holy Bible. New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1996. Print.
“How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Present at the Creation.” Narr. Elizabeth Blair. Morning Edition. Natl. Public Radio. 23 Dec. 2002. Print. Transcript.
Kane, George. “And, Dear Dr. Seuss, the Whole World’s in Love with Yeuss.” Fensch 57-60. Print.
Kowalski, Frankie. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas…and my Heart.” Animation World Magazine 1(9): Dec. 1996. n. pag. n.d. Web. 4 April 2008.
“Later Years.” Seussville. n. pag. n.d. Web. 13 December 2008.
MacDonald, Ruth D. Dr. Seuss. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988. Print.
Minear, Richard H. Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel. New York: New Press, 2001. Print.
Morgan, Judith, and Neil Morgan. Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel: A Biography. New York: De Capo Press, 1996. Print.
Nel, Philip. “Children’s Literature Goes to War: Dr. Seuss, P.D. Eastman, Munro Leaf, and the Private SNAFU Films (1943-46).” Journal of Popular Culture 40.3 (2007): 468-87. Print.
---. Dr. Seuss: American Icon. London: Continuum, 2004. Print.
---. “ ‘Said a bird in the midst of a blitz…’: How World War II created Dr. Seuss.” Mosaic: a Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 34.2 (2001): 65-86. Print.
“Profile: Dr. Seuss Creation the Grinch Meant to Be a Commentary on the Commercialization of Christmas.” Host. Bob Edwards. Morning Edition. Natl. Public Radio. 23 Dec. 2002. Print. Transcript.
Wolosky, Shira. “Democracy in America: By Dr. Seuss.” Southwest Review 85.2 (2000): 167-83. Print.
Julia Pond
Volume 14, Issue 1 The Looking Glass, January/February 2010
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