When I was a teacher at a New York City public school, one of my favorite traditions centered on the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go. On the last day of school before summer vacation, I would read the book to my class of first or second graders and then remind them of the places they would go. All these years later, I still tear up thinking about it.

Dr. Seuss’s books were among the first books my grandchildren learned to read, and I remember the wonder in their voices as they read aloud for the first time, not from memory but by putting together the shapes and sounds of letters to make words. And with Dr. Seuss’s books, what fun words they were!