RANDOM HOUSE CHILDREN’S BOOKS LAUNCHES
THE SEUSSENTENNIAL™ IMAGINATION TOUR TO HONOR
THE MOST BELOVED CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHOR OF ALL TIME-DR. SEUSS

The Imagination Tour is the major component of a yearlong tribute to Ted Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, called
“Seussentennial: A Century of Imagination” in honor of the centennial of his birth

New York, NY (December 12, 2003) On January 3, 2004, Random House Children’s Books will kick off The Seussentennial Imagination Tour at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan in New York City as part of a yearlong tribute to Theodor Seuss Geisel, the most beloved children’s book author of all time, it was announced by the company today. March 2, 2004 marks the centennial of Geisel’s birth, and Random House joins Dr. Seuss Enterprises in this celebration of the man known and loved by generations as Dr. Seuss. The “Imagination Tour” will visit children’s museums, libraries and community centers in 40 cities across the country, bringing the Seussentennial to life through free, live performances based on the life, the words, and the art of Dr. Seuss.

“It is an honor and a privilege to salute Dr. Seuss in this way. He is an integral part of our publishing history and will be a part of our future for many years to come,” commented Chip Gibson, president and publisher of Random House Children’s Books. “Seuss books evoke an incomparable nostalgia among adults raised with them, and those very same books delight new readers unfailingly year after year.”

The Irondale Ensemble Project, a New York based improvisational theater group, developed the Seussentennial Imagination Tour’s performance and workshop. Throughout the performance, Irondale actors will incorporate essential themes of Dr. Seuss’s life and work using imaginative whimsy, language play, and improvisation to create a unique participatory experience for Dr. Seuss fans young and old. “In getting really close to Geisel’s work, I am astounded by its complexities,” observed Jim Niesen, Irondale’s artistic director. “His stories work not only on the level of immediate gratification and entertainment but also on a much deeper, more thoughtful level. Geisel’s masterful use of language makes it as challenging to bring his work to life as Shakespeare’s. Theodor Seuss Geisel set the bar very very high.”

The Seussentennial Imagination Tour events are free and open to the general public. Venues hosting the tour may have admission fees to enter the facility. Any fees charged by the host venue for admission to their facility are the responsibility of the attendees. The events will also include costume character appearances by The Cat in the Hat,Thing One, and Thing Two; readings from Dr. Seuss books; and goody bags for kids. In each community, children will create a storyline that will be the foundation of an “imagination book” that will grow as the tour travels across the country. Dr. Seuss books will be available for sale at each event.

In partnership with First Book, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to providing children from low-income families with their first, new books, Random House will donate thousands of new books to children in each community that the tour visits.

The Seussentennial Imagination Tour is produced by Ripple Effect, Inc., an event marketing and production agency based in Winnetka, Illinois.

For more information about other Seussentennial programs and for complete details regarding the Imagination Tour cities, dates and event locations, log onto www.seussentennial.com.

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Random House Children’s Books is the largest English language children’s trade book publisher. Producing books for preschool children through young adult readers, in all formats from board books to activity books to picture books and novels, Random House Children’s Books brings together world-famous franchise characters, multimillion-copy series, and top-flight, award-winning authors and illustrators. The award-winning Random House Children’s Books Web site, kids@random (offers an array of materials and activities free of charge for children, parents, and educators. Random House is also the host of www.seussville.com, Dr. Seuss’s official home on the internet. Random House Children’s Books is a division of Random House, Inc., a unit of the book division of Bertelsmann AG, a leading international media company.

The Irondale Ensemble Project was founded in 1983 by Jim Niesen, Terry Greiss and Barbara Mackenzie-Wood as an experimental/research theater and exists to challenge traditional assumptions about theater: who makes it, how it gets made and how it can be used. Irondale has produced more than 40 major Off-Broadway shows (including 15 original pieces created by the ensemble), toured nationally and internationally and created a unique 10 year partnership with the International Classic Center of St. Petersburg, Russia. In addition to developing and performing its own theatrical pieces, Irondale has conducted extensive programs of educational and social outreach work for schools, prisons and other community based institutions. In 1990 Irondale produced a teaching video, distributed nationally by Select Media. The Game Video: Experiential Strategies for the Classroom was awarded the Golden Eagle Award from the Council on International Non-Theatrical and Educational Videos (CINE), for Best Educational Video of 1990. Irondale is also the recipient of the 2000 Rene Otto Castillo Award for Political and Humanitarian Theater.

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