Yertle the Turtle

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Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories is a book containing three stories written by famous children's author Dr. Seuss. It was first published by Random House Books on April 12, 1958, and is written primarily in anapestic tetrameter.

1 Yertle the Turtle
2 Other Stories
3 Trivia
4 References

[edit] Yertle the Turtle

The original 1958 cover

The story revolves around a turtle named Yertle (hence the name of the book) who is the king of a pond. He commands the other turtles to stack themselves beneath him so he may have a throne high enough to see and rule over more land "'most a mile" around.

A little turtle named Mack, who is standing at the bottom of the pile, complains, "I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here at the bottom we, too, should have rights." Yertle refuses to listen to Mack's pleas and commands more and more turtles to add to his throne. When Yertle notices the moon rise above him as the night approaches, he decides to call for 5,607 more turtles for the stack to try to rise above it. However, before he can give the command, Mack, strained and angry, burps, shaking the stack of turtles and tossing Yertle off into the mud. The story ends with: "And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free, As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be."

It is said by Dr. Seuss himself that "Yertle the Turtle" was modeled after the rise of Hitler. The book explained his feelings about fascism, and Nazis in particular.^[1]

Like most of Seuss' works, the poem is almost entirely in anapestic tetrameter, with very few deviations.

ISBN 0-394-80087-7

[edit] Other Stories

The same volume includes two other stories -- "Gertrude McFuzz" and "The Big Brag." Both share with the title story the theme of vanity. The first of these is about a bird who, jealous of another bird's prettier feathers, takes a bunch of pills which cause her own to grow until they are too big for her to move. The second features a rabbit and a bear who brag about the distance-ranges of their hearing and smell respectively, until humbled by a worm who claims he can see all around the world —- right back to his own hill where he sees the two biggest fools he's ever met (the rabbit and the bear), "Who seem to have nothing else better to do / than sit here and argue who's better than who!"

[edit] Trivia

In one episode of The Simpsons called "Lisa the Simpson," Lisa Simpson referred to Yertle the Turtle as "possibly the best book ever written on the subject of turtle stacking."
The American funk-rock band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, turned some of the verses of Yertle The Turtle into a song, also called Yertle The Turtle. The song is on the band's second LP, Freaky Styley.
In Stephen Flaherty's Broadway show Seussical the Musical, based on Dr. Seuss's books, Yertle the Turtle is the judge of the court case of the people versus Horton the elephant.