A new Dr Seuss, did I hear you say?
Oh me, oh my, what a fabulous day!

Apologies for the poor rhyming verse, but its not every day you get a newly-published Dr Seuss book into the bookshop. In fact, since he died in 1991, it hasn’t happened for a very long time. Even The Bippolo Seed and Other Stories, released a few years back, was a compilation of stories previously published in magazines. So when a manuscript was found in Theodor Seuss Geisel’s papers, complete and yet unpublished, in 2013, by his longtime secretary and friend, Claudia Prescott, it was cause for celebration. Curated and coddled by the talents of Geisel’s long-term art director at Random House, Cathy Goldsmith, this beautiful book took two more years to be published. But what excitement there has been to read a fresh story from the master of rhyming verse.

What Pet Should I Get? is believed to be from Giesel’s prolific period between 1958 and 1962, when he had numerous projects, including his own imprint at Random House, on the go. This book also features the same characters as One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Goldsmith has suggested that this story may have been the precursor to One Fish.

Nobody is quite sure, but we do know that What Pet Should I Get? is a clever, witty story about a brother and sister team who must make that delightful, and terribly important, decision of choosing a pet to buy. It has a wonderfully open-ended finale, leaving the reader to decide exactly which pet they did get.

This first edition has a fascinating epilogue filled with photos and stories about Geisel, his childhood pets, the discovery of the manuscript and how publication was handled so carefully with Seuss’s famous perfectionism in mind. This is a fascinating piece of collectible memorabilia for Dr Seuss fans young and old, as well as a fabulous rhyming story that any child will enjoy.

What a fabulous day indeed.

Angela Crocombe