Five delightful Dr. Seuss-inspired apps for iPhone and iPad

Dr. Seuss, author of 44 unforgettable children's books, is honored on his birthday, March 2, each year. His books are beloved by both children and adults alike. Favorites like "Oh, the Places You'll Go," "The Cat in the Hat" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" have sparked creativity in others. Here are five Seuss-inspired apps to help you celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday.

Dr. Seuss Band: This app transforms your iPhone or iPad into a fun Seussian instrument. Play along with the game's songs or create your own tunes. The app comes with 10 original songs from "The Cat in the Hat," "Hop on Pop" and other Seuss favorites. The instruments are Seussian versions of the clarinet, French horn, flute, trombone and trumpet. You can add silly sound effects like a train whistle, fish bowl and Reverb, or swap out parts of your horn to create lots of different sounds.

Each song has three levels: easy, medium and hard. Play is similar to Rock Band where notes fall down the screen in different colors and lengths; the player taps the button under the note for the required period of time. High scores unlock more songs and features. This is a fantastic app for people of all ages. I speak from experience; I played this for 15 minutes after downloading it for my son.

Dr. Seuss Camera - The Cat in the Hat Edition: The Seussian camera app has 16 different card options. Pose with your favorite Cat in the Hat characters or become one of them. Cards can be personalized with borders, stamps and quotes from the book. Cards can be saved to the photo library or mailed to friends and family. The Grinch Edition of the app is fun for making Christmas cards while the Birthday Edition makes whimsical cards to send to your friends on their big day.

Dr. Seuss Senders: This app is chock full of cheer-ups and quotes – 100 of them, to be exact. There are Get Well, Congratulations and cards just to make people smile. Each card features original Dr. Seuss art work paired with a Seussian-inspired saying. The cards are grouped by categories so you can easily find the perfect one for the occasion. Cards can be e-mailed to your friends or saved to the photo album where you can share them via text or social media.

Lorax Garden: If you love the movie and the book, you'll love this app. For those who've read the book, the end of the story tells readers that it's up to us to change our destructive ways. The app opens with the last few pages of the book and tasks the player to help the Lorax regrow the Truffala tree forests. Each level features a barren landscape desperately in need of trees and flowers. Each place requires a certain number of trees, which you care for. Meanwhile, you're also given flower seeds. Successfully growing these flowers gives you 'care hearts' which you can use to speed up the growth of the trees. The app is a fun way for kids to learn about how we impact the environment. You can send postcards of the gardens you create. The game features beautiful, whimsical artwork based on the book.

Up with a Fish: This app, based on Dr. Seuss's famous book, 'The Cat in the Hat', is fun for people of all ages. You help the cat stack falling objects on his tower of fish bowls. To help him catch the falling objects, tilt your device. As you catch more fish bowls, the fish moves up the stack. The object of the game is to get the highest score possible before missing three fish bowls. Falling objects are based on the story: umbrellas, books, rakes, and others. Avoid the falling Things (Thing 1 and Thing 2); they’ll ruin your tower.

Read Across America Day, sponsored by the National Educator Association, coincides each year with Dr. Seuss's birthday. This year, it was celebrated on March 1 because Seuss's birthday inconveniently fell on a weekend.  So, America, don't forget to pick up a book to read for yourself or to your children.

My favorite Dr. Seuss book to read to my son is "There's a Wocket in My Pocket." What's yours?

Image courtesy of the author via the Dr. Seuss Camera app.