The Cat in the Hat

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The Cat in the Hat is a fictional cat created by Dr. Seuss. He appears in five of Seuss's rhymed children's books:

Contents

[edit] The Cat in the Hat

The Cat in the Hat book cover.
The Cat in the Hat book cover.

"The Cat In The Hat is the book that made Dr. Seuss famous. Without The Cat, Seuss would have remained a minor light in the history of children's literature. With it, he introduced himself into the public schools in the United States, where generations of readers have learned about him who othewise would not have. With the series of Beginner Books that The Cat inaugerated, Seuss promoted both his name and the cause of elementary literacy in the United States[1]."

In the first book featuring the character (The Cat in the Hat, 1957), the Cat brings a cheerful, exotic and exuberant form of chaos to a household of two young children one rainy day while their mother is out. Bringing with him two creatures appropriately named Thing One and Thing Two, the Cat performs all sorts of wacky tricks to amuse the children, with mixed results. The Cat's antics are vainly opposed by the family pet, who is a sentient and articulate goldfish. The children (Sally and her older brother, who serves as the narrator) ultimately prove exemplary latchkey children, capturing the Things and bringing the Cat under control. He cleans up the house on his way out, disappearing seconds before the mother arrives.

The book has been popular since its publication, and a logo featuring the Cat adorns all Dr. Seuss publications and animated films produced after Cat in the Hat.

Seuss wrote the book because he felt that there should be more entertaining and fun material for beginning readers. From a literary point of view, the book is a feat of skill, since it simultaneously maintains a strict triple meter, keeps to a tiny vocabulary, and tells an entertaining tale. Literary critics occasionally write recreational essays about the work, having fun with issues such as the absence of the mother and the psychological or symbolic characterizations of Cat, Things, and Fish. This book is written in a style common to Dr. Seuss, anapestic tetrameter (see Dr. Seuss's meters).

The Cat in the Hat has also been translated into Latin with the title Cattus Petasatus and into Yiddish with the title "di Kats der Payats".

The story is 1626 words in length and uses a vocabulary of only 236 unique words, of which 54 occur exactly once and 33 twice. Only a single word – another – has three syllables, while 14 have two and the remaining 221 are monosyllabic. The longest words are something and playthings.

The Cat in the Hat has gone on to sell 7.2 million copies in the United States alone (up to 2000), making it the 9th best-selling hardcover children's book of all time.

[edit] History

Dr. Seuss created The Cat In The Hat in response to the May 24, 1954 Life Magazine article by John Hersey, titled “Why Do Students Bog Down on First R? A Local Committee Sheds Light on a National Problem: Reading.” In the article, Hersey was critical of school primers:

In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children. [Existing primers] feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls. . . . In bookstores, anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave. Given incentive from school boards, publishers could do as well with primers.

Hersey’s arguments were enumerated over ten pages of Life Magazine, which was the leading periodical during that time. After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma connected with student reading levels, Hersey asked toward the end of the article:

Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate — drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, “Dr. Seuss,” Walt Disney?

Dr. Seuss responded to this “challenge” by rigidly limiting himself to a small set of words from an elementary school vocabulary list, then crafted a story based upon two of the words which rhymed—cat and hat.

Dr. Seuss books were created to supplement the 'look say' reading programs taught in schools. Dr. Seuss' publisher supplied him with a sight vocabulary of 223 words which he was to use to write his books, a sight vocabulary that was in harmony with the sight words the child would be learning in school.

In an interview he gave in Arizona magazine in June 1981 Dr. Seuss claimed the book took nine months to complete due to the difficulty in writing a book from the 223 selected words. He continued to explain that the title for the book came from his desire to have the title rhyme and the first two suitable rhyming words that he could find from the list were 'cat' and 'hat'. Dr. Seuss also regrets the association of his book and the 'look say' reading method adopted during the Dewey revolt in the 1920's by expressing the opinion "I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country."

[edit] The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

The Cat in the Hat made a return appearance in this 1958 sequel. On this occasion, he leaves Thing One and Thing Two at home, but does bring along Little Cat A, nested inside his hat. Little Cat A doffs his hat to reveal Little Cat B, who in turn reveals C, and so on down to the microscopic Little Cat Z, who turns out to be the key to the plot. The crisis involves a pink bathtub ring.

The book ends in a burst of flamboyant versification, with the full list of little cats arranged into a metrically-perfect rhymed quatrain. It teaches the reader the alphabet.

Little Cats A, B and C were also characters in the 1996 TV series The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.

The Cat in The Hat Comes Back was part of Beginner Book Video along with There's a Wocket in My Pocket! and Fox in Socks.The Cat in the Hat was a book which turned into this.Some people say in this TV special Dr. Seuss was the only actor.

[edit] Beginner Books

The Cat In The Hat was published by Random House. However because of its success, an independent publishing company was formed, called Beginner Books. Geisel was the president and editor. Beginner Books was chartered as a series of books oriented toward various stages of early reading development. (Note: From 1957 to 1960, Random House was the distributor of Beginner Books. In 1960, Random House purchased Beginner Books, and it became a division of Random House[2].) The second book in the series was nearly as popular, The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, published in 1958.

Springing from this series of beginning readers were such standards as A Fly Went By (1958), Sam and the Firefly (1958), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Go, Dog. Go! (1961), Hop On Pop (1963), and Fox in Socks (1965), each a monument in the picturebook industry, and also significant in the historical development of early readers. All are still in print and remain very popular over forty years after their initial publication.

Creators in the Beginner Book series were such luminaries as Jan & Stan Berenstain, P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Helen Palmer (Mr. Geisel’s wife). The Beginner Books dominated the children’s picturebook market of the 1960’s, and still plays a significant role today within the phases of students’ reading development. The early success of Beginner Books, both from a commercial and learn-to-read perspective, initiated the blurring between educational and entertainment books[3].

[edit] Actors portraying the Cat

[edit] Adaptations

[edit] Television

Main article: The Cat in the Hat (TV special)

[edit] Film

Main article: The Cat in the Hat (film)

[edit] Educational CD game

Living Books has created an educational CD game of the story, guided by animated characters. Software MacKiev brought this electronic version of the book to the Mac OS X.

[edit] Parodies

A book called "The Cat NOT in the Hat!" written by a fictional "Dr. Juice" was published by Penguin Books USA in 1995. The book depicted O.J. Simpson resembling the Cat in the Hat and describing his perspective on his murder trial with verses such as, "A man this famous/Never hires/Lawyers like/Jacoby Meyers/When you're accused of a killing scheme/You need to build a real Dream Team" and "One knife?/Two knife?/Red knife/Dead wife." Dr. Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel, sued Penguin Books, arguing that the work infringed the copyright to her husband's work. The court agreed and enjoined Penguin Books from distributing the book. [1]

Freud on Seuss is a humorous short essay on the symbolism of The Cat in the Hat. [2]

In an episode of The Fairly OddParents, Timmy reads a book called "The Rat in Spats", which is illustrated much like Dr. Seuss. The Rat in Spats is similar to Pinky and Phar Fig Newton from Pinky and the Brain.

An ongoing cartoon on Acceptable.TV called Mr. Sprinkles, parodies the beloved character and story. This cartoon can be viewed on the program's website.

[edit] Editions

All were published by Random House. The original edition was a joint publication with Houghton Mifflin.

  • The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats introduction and annotations by Philip Nel

[edit] References

  1. ^ MacDonald, Ruth K.; "Dr. Seuss"; Chapter 4, The Beginnings of the Empire: The Cat In The Hat and Its Legacy; pg 105-146; Twayne; 1988
  2. ^ Morgan, Judith & Neil; "Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography"; pg. 167; Random House; 1995.
  3. ^ Zielinski, Linda & Stan, "Childrens Picturebook Price Guide", Page 14, Flying Moose Books, 2006.
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