If I Ran the Circus

In Dr. Seuss's 1956 rhyming picture book, young Morris McGurk looks at the empty lot behind Mr. Sneelock's ramshackle store, littered with rusty cans, a dead tree and old cars, and pictures the circus he could build there, the Circus McGurkus. As the show grows more elaborate, so do the demands on the unsuspecting Sneelock, who must serve 500 gallons of lemonade, be lassoed by a Wily Walloo, wrestle a Grizzly-Ghastly and ski down a slope dotted with giant cacti.

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Richard Branson: “I have been reading a lot of books by one of my favourite authors, Dr Seuss... There is more wisdom and humour in his cartoons and rhymes than in any number of lengthy and highbrow books.”