SEUSS FANS TAKE TIME FOR DAY OF RHYME.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

The red, white and pink cake was as tall as the trademark striped top hat made famous by Dr. Seuss, the beloved author whose birthday and fanciful, rhyming stories local school kids celebrated Monday.

At Meadows Elementary in Valencia and James Foster Elementary in Saugus, youngsters ate birthday cake, dressed like their favorite literary characters - ranging from Snow White to Waldo - and listened as visitors such as firefighters, sheriff's deputies, school board members, superintendents and Highway Patrol officers read books with the nonsense words and inventive drawings for which Dr. Seuss is best known.

`` `Oh, the places you'll go,' '' Glendale police Officer Tom Broadway read to a class of first-graders at Foster Elementary. ``Yes we can!'' the kids chanted back each time the title phrase was mentioned in the book, one of the last the author wrote before his 1991 death.

``It talks about perseverance and succeeding,'' Broadway said, explaining he chose the book to read aloud because it's a favorite of his own sons. ``I think they like the imagination and the tongue twisters,'' he said.

The observances at Foster and Meadows were part of Read Across America, sponsored by the National Education Association to commemorate in classrooms all over the country the day in 1904 when the late Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born. Geisel's actual birthday is Wednesday.

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton paid tribute to Dr. Seuss by reading to a group of schoolchildren in suburban Maryland.

At Foster Elementary, kindergartner Claire Fredrickson pronounced ``Hop On Pop'' her favorite Dr. Seuss book. ``I like the part when Pop sits on the cactus,'' the 5-year-old explained. ``He says, ouch!''

James Foley liked the book ``Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?'' so much that his grandmother made him a costume just like the title character. The 6-year-old kindergartner came to Foster Elementary in a brown outfit with matching sky-high hat, blue string tie and even a paste-on mustache.

``You know what's so great about Dr. Seuss? He's taught phonics (to kids). Even the nonsense words carry the rules of phonics,'' said Vicky Abramson, who teaches gifted and talented students at Foster. ``I love the artwork. I'm captivated by the characters he could draw.''

Sixth-grade teacher Andi Gruber said Meadows Elementary students all made red-and-white Cat in the Hat-style headgear to mark Monday's celebration of a perennially favorite author.

``His popularity has not in any way waned over the years,'' Gruber said. She speculated on some reasons for the long appeal of a Dr. Seuss book.

``It tickled the fantasy of kids; it was funny and it was silly,'' she said. And amid the make-believe, Dr. Seuss managed to sneak in a message or a moral to the story.

``The good guys always win at the end. (Kids) really like that,'' Gruber said. Among the guest readers were Newhall School District Superintendent Marc Winger, school board member Sue Neiberger, former Saugus Union School District superintendent James Foster - who read at his namesake school - and Saugus school board members Rose Koscielny and Judy Umeck.

And what would the birthday celebration have been without a Seussian lunch, where the special of the day was - you guessed it - green eggs and ham?

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) CHP Officer Doug Sweeney reads a Dr. Seuss story to first-graders at Foster Elementary.

(2) Tyler Steen meets the Cat in the Hat, from Dr. Seuss' story of the same name, Monday at a celebration of the late author's birthday.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News