Today, on what would have been Dr. Seuss’ 100th birthday, I’d like to take a step to the side of science and talk a little about a children’s book author who continues to have a great influence on my life.

Why a step to the side and not a step back? Well, remember if you will the last book the wonderful Theodor Seuss Geisel published before his death – Oh, the Places You’ll Go. (If you need a little refresher on the text, just click on the title!) Going back and rereading that now, as a women in the sciences, I realize that it’s a very good description of life as a female scientist.

We all have “brains in our head”, or we wouldn’t have gotten where we are now, and we all want to go where “things can happen/and frequently do”, be it a research lab, a classroom, or any one of the countless possibilities for us. I’m willing to make the assumption that we all hit those bumps in the road, all find ourselves in slumps and in dark places where we wonder “How much can [I] lose? How much can [I] win?” – science isn’t all about success; there’s lots of failures along the way (or, as Thomas Edison put it, lots of ways that won’t work).

I could go on and on, using everything I learned in countless literature classes to analyze every line, but all I’ll say is that every woman in science – and anyone else – who needs a little pick-me-up should read Oh, the Places You’ll Go. It talks us through the dark times and brings us to a place where we’re ready to move mountains, to take our place in whichever field we choose.

Do you have any favorite things to read when you’re feeling down? I’d love to get a list of uplifting and motivational quotes, poems, and anything else you can think of to post either in a future blog post or (if I can figure out how to do it) a permanent page linked to the blog so that people can come back to it whenever its needed.