efore Dr. Seuss died in 1991, he had begun to work on a new book about an unusual schoolteacher named Miss Bonkers, but he never finished it. According to his secretary, Claudia Prescott, "He had the sketches up on his bulletin board for a long time...and he used to say, 'Miss Bonkers is driving me bonkers.'"
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fter his death, his editor, Janet Schulman, asked Claudia to send her anything she could find on the Miss Bonkers book. When Janet received the package, she was disappointed to find that Dr. Seuss had only done 14 colored pencil sketches and written a few rhymes and a list of ideas for names and places in the school--not really enough to make a whole book.
hen Janet had a wonderful idea. Why not ask children's poet Jack Prelutsky and children's book illustrator Lane Smith to finish what Dr. Seuss had started? If anyone could do it, this talented pair could.
is the result of three one-of-a-kind voices coming together in a book that is greater than the sum of its parts.


Text copyright © 1999 by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P., and Jack Prelutsky. Illustrations copyright © 1999 by Lane Smith. Representations of Dr. Seuss characters and images as they appear in Lane Smith's illustrations are copyright © and trademark ™ by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. Used by permission. Illustrations in "How This Book Came to Be" copyright © 1999 by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.