DR. SEUSS & MR. GEISEL

DR. SEUSS & MR. GEISEL Judith and Neil Morgan (Random House, $25) As it turns out, the life of Sam-I-Am's creator was just about as whimsical and charmed as the places and faces featured in his beloved children's books. Born into small-town America in 1904, he grew up near Mulberry Street in Springfield, Mass. At Dartmouth College he produced his earliest cartoons for the campus humor magazine Jack-O-Lantern, still signing his real name, Ted Geisel. (When caught drinking during Prohibition and removed as editor, he started using his middle name, Seuss, as a pseudonym.) Dartmouth was also where the antlered dog in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas was born -- in margin sketches drawn during zoology class. His many glittery awards -- among them, a 1984 Pulitzer and Oscars for his work on documentaries in 1945 and '47 and for 1950's Best Cartoon, Gerald McBoing-Boing -- belie the whimsy he cherished. As Geisel himself once noted, ''In the realm of nonsense, there are Mother Goose -- (Lewis) Carroll -- and Dr. Seuss.'' A cat wearing the right hat indeed. A-