Oh, the Places You'll Go!
Published in 1990, Oh, the Places You'll Go! was the last book Theodor Geisel finished before his death. It addresses the reader directly, sending a small figure out of town and through bright cities, dark lurches, and stretches of waiting in between. The verse is classic Seuss, with invented landscapes and bouncy meter, but the message is unusually adult. Life will lift you and stall you and lift you again, and the work is to keep going. The book has become a fixture of American graduations, given to students leaving high school and college, and it is read just as often by adults at points of change. Beneath the cheer is a quietly honest map of how a life actually moves.
Also by Dr. Seuss
What you might want to know about Oh, the Places You'll Go!
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Dr. Seuss's last book, a rhymed pep talk for the reader heading out into the wide and uneven world.
Barrymore named it on her One Grand Books desert-island list, putting a picture book alongside Hemingway and Salinger as one of the ten titles she would keep.
No. Dr. Seuss wrote it as a book for any age, and it is most often given to graduates and adults heading into new stretches of life.
Oh, the Places You'll Go! was written by Dr. Seuss, published in 1990 by Random House.
Oh, the Places You'll Go! is 56 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Oh, the Places You'll Go! takes most readers under an hour to finish.
Oh, the Places You'll Go! is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
