Springfield Museums in Springfield, Massachusetts, is celebrating following the launch of The Amazing World of Dr Seuss Museum, an attraction dedicated to the life and works of the popular writer and animator Theodor Seuss Geisel.

Located in the grounds of the existing Dr Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden in Springfield – the town where Geisel was born and raised – the US$7m (€6.2m, £5.4m) museum features five zones where visitors can learn about famous Dr Seuss stories, such as The Cat in the Hat, and Green Eggs and Ham.

Set over three storeys, the 21,000sq ft (1,950sq m) attraction will be managed by the Springfield Museums organisation and has been funded by private investors, the Dr Seuss Enterprises and the Dr Seuss Foundation.

The ground floor of the Museum features the Cat’s Corner – a Dr Seuss-themed educational space for ongoing art and literacy-based activities, with a full-time Seuss educator staffing the space.

On the first floor, family-friendly interactive exhibits explore Dr Seuss’s Springfield roots and providing opportunities to experiment with new sounds and vocabulary, play rhyming games, and invent stories.

The second storey features a recreation of Seuss Geisel’s studio and living room, also featuring never before publicly displayed art, family photographs and letters.

The museum is well situated within the sculpture garden, which opened in 2002 and attracts around 3 million visitors each year. Some 3,000 people were in attendance for the launch, with 1,800 visiting the museum on the sold-out opening day. Plans for the second phase of development include an outdoor Seussian Alphabet Maze.