The Joy of Reading

Tall candy-cane hats waggled around school campuses across Southern California on Friday, a day set aside to remember Dr. Seuss and to celebrate reading.

Cat in the Hat costumes, eggs dyed bright green and other Seussian paraphernalia accompanied readings by celebrities, officials and other volunteers to mark the fourth annual Read Across America, a national event that organizers estimated would involve 30 million children and adults.

Started in 1998 by the National Education Assn., the nation’s largest teachers union, the reading extravaganza is tied to the birthday of the late children’s author Theodor Geisel, more commonly known as Dr. Seuss.

The goal? “It’s motivational--to show kids that reading not only is critical, but it’s also very enjoyable,” said Laura Schwalm, superintendent of the Garden Grove Unified School District, where nearly all 45 elementary schools participated.

Dixie Canyon Avenue Elementary School in Sherman Oaks attracted some serious star power, drawing the likes of actor Ed Asner and LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks as guest readers.

Parks read the Seuss book “The Lorax” to an auditorium full of fifth-graders.

For student Vanessa Watson, the best part of the Park’s reading was “how he explained after he read. He asked the moral.”

At Oxnard’s Driffill Elementary School more than 50 teachers and administrators walked through hallways in striped hats. The cafeteria offered boiled, scrambled or fried eggs--all died clover green.

Every half-hour a volunteer from the community--administrators, law enforcement officers, professionals, retired people--would come into a classroom and read a Dr. Seuss story aloud.

In Roberta Goodman’s first-grade classroom at El Morro Elementary School in Laguna Beach, the students’ desks were laden with favorite Dr. Seuss books. A Dr. Seuss birthday cake begged to be cut. On a clothesline hung paper hats labeled with favorite examples of Seussian words--zizzer-zazzer-zuzz, zongywas, kerchoo, to name a few.

Joined by students from Cheri David’s first-grade classroom, 40 children listened intently to volunteer Jill Doran read Dr. Seuss’s “Sneetches & Other Stories.” The main story is a whimsical tale in which the plain-bellied Sneetches are considered inferior by those with green stars on their bellies.

“What’s the message Dr. Seuss is trying to get across?” their teacher asked at the end of Doran’s animated reading.

A half-dozen hands shot up.

“That we’re not all alike and it doesn’t matter,” said first-grader Emily Layton.

About 30 community volunteer readers were given striped hats before heading off to their assigned classrooms, where many students were dressed as their favorite Dr. Seuss characters.

“Oh, I love reading Dr. Seuss books!” said fourth-grader Morgan Somerset, who had been looking forward to Friday’s celebration and eagerly escorted readers to their classrooms. “When I was little, they were the first books I read. I really love reading, and today we get to read a lot.”

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Times staff writer Ofelia Casillas and correspondent Catherine Blake contributed to this story.