Wise up!

Luck came Mr. Geisel’s way when he had given up on ever getting his first children’s book, “And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” published. He was walking down Madison Street carrying the manuscript when he bumped into Mike McClintock, a friend from college, who asked what he was carrying under his arm. Mr. Geisel replied, “A book that no one will publish. I’m lugging it home to burn.” As it happened, Mr. Geisel’s old college friend worked as an editor of children’s books at a major publishing house, Vanguard. He liked the book, and so the first Dr. Seuss book was published. Later in his career, luck continued to bless Mr. Geisel. One day, he was working on transparent tracing paper in his studio when a gust of wind blew his transparent drawing of an elephant on top of a drawing of a tree. Mr. Geisel looked at the juxtaposition, then thought to himself that he should figure out why the elephant was sitting in a tree. He figured it out, and the solution became his book, “Horton Hatches the Egg.” From these events in his life, Mr. Geisel concluded, “See, everything has to do with luck.” (We can add hard work to luck—he worked for a year on “The Cat in the Hat.”)

• When he was a child, L.A.-based Chicano artist Gronk spent a lot of time in a public library. At one point he even decided to read all the books in the library, beginning with the books with th titles itle les that started with A and going through the alphabet to the books with titles that started with Z. Of course, a librarian figured out what he was doing, and she suggested a different approach, saying, “I know what you’re doing — you are trying to read A to Z. But you need to start with the Greeks.” He did read about the Greeks, and the Greeks had an impact on his art. In the mid-1980s, he created the character of La Tormenta, who has appeared in many of his works of art. Gronk says, “The Greeks had Medusa, Medea, Electra. Well, I created my own: Tormenta. It’s an American mythological character. She’s in thousands of pieces from print work to live stage. I even did her as a cookie at a Chicago art fair. She’s a very strong woman but glamorous at the same time.”

• Advertising copywriters can be very good writers. In 1919, 18-year-old Lillian Eichler was assigned the task of writing advertisements for Eleanor Holt’s book “Encyclopedia of Etiquette.” Ms. Eichler came through in a big way. Her ad showed a guest spilling a cup of coffee on a tablecloth — the copy read, “Has this ever happened to you?” The ad was very successful, and 1,000 copies of the book were sold quickly. Unfortunately, most of those copies were returned just as quickly, as the book was old fashioned and hopelessly out of date. No problem. The publisher, Doubleday, figured that if Ms. Eichler could write advertising copy as well as she did, then she could rewrite the book. She did rewrite the book, newly titled “Book of Etiquette,” and sold at least three million copies over the next 30 years.

• Humorist Alan Coren thought that he wasn’t selling enough books, so he complained to his agent, who told him that very few subjects would definitely sell books, and those subjects were cats, golf and Nazis. No fool, Mr. Coren titled his very next book “Golfing for Cats” — on the cover was a picture of a swastika. Newspaper columnist Stephen Moss believes that another subject that will definitely sell books is God — whether the book is pro or con on that particular subject. And yet another subject guaranteed to sell books is how to lose weight. Therefore, Mr. Moss is planning to write a book titled “How I Found God and Lost Weight on Life’s 18th Hole.” On the cover will be a picture of a cat — beside the picture of Hitler.

• Jean Little, the author of “Little by Little,” once read “The Secret Garden” to some children she was babysitting. The girls seemed very interested in the book, so she read a couple of extra chapters, but the boy looked bored. However, after Ms. Little had finished reading, the boy wanted to use the telephone. Given permission, he called his mother and said in an excited tone, “Mum, they got into the garden!” Ms. Little learned from this experience: “Never again did I make the mistake of thinking that a child who appeared inattentive was getting nothing out of a book.”

• When Joan Lowery Nixon, who wrote many mysteries for young readers, won her second Edgar Award for outstanding mystery writing, a woman asked her, “You’ve done so well with your books for children — why don’t you try writing a real book?” However, Ms. Nixon felt that children’s books are real books, and that they are harder to write than books for adults. After all, when a child grows bored with a book, the child stops reading it, so Ms. Nixon constantly revised her books until she knew that they would keep a child’s interest.

• The star of the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Sarah Michelle Gellar, collects first editions of children’s books. She is especially fond of the author Dr. Seuss because in his book “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket,” he wrote the line “There’s a gellar in the cellar.”