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A tip of the hat

From Things (One and Two) to rings (remember the pink bathtub ring?), we've had 50 years of feline fun .

By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published January 28, 2007

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ADVERTISEMENT [Dr. Seuss Collection, University of California, San Diego] Dr. Seuss’ preliminary sketches for The Cat in the Hat appear in a new annotated edition. [Dr. Seuss Collection, University of California, San Diego] Seuss named the girl Janet, then Sally, a likely reference to the sister in the “Dick and Jane” books.

This Cat is 50, and so is his Hat.

And now you can find out much more about that.

Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, the bestselling children's book ever, was first published in 1957. Millions of youngsters have learned to read from the adventures of the mischievous Cat, and millions of parents have read it aloud billions of times.

But what about the story behind the story?

Cat in the Hat fans now can turn to The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats, a new book by Seuss scholar Philip Nel, for a biography of the author, his sketches for the book's pages, detailed annotations about everything from Seuss' sources to the book's cultural impact - and the full texts of The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

Nel, a professor in the English department at Kansas State University, doesn't see anything odd about teaching college courses about kids' books. "It's fun to be serious about Seuss."

Nel, 37, says, "Dr. Seuss is likely the reason I went to graduate school in the first place. He got me interested in literature. Green Eggs and Ham is the book I learned to read from, and I still remember how cool it was."

Dr. Seuss was the pen name of Theodor Geisel. Born in Massachusetts in 1904, Ted Geisel was a successful advertising artist and political cartoonist who by 1956 had written several books for older kids as Dr. Seuss.

Moved by a national controversy over why baby boom children were struggling to learn to read, Seuss decided to write a primer that would blow away all those deadly boring "Dick and Jane" books for first-time readers.

He thought he could knock it out in "a week or so." It took about a year and a half. But Cat was an immediate hit, selling 2-million copies in its first couple of years and earning Seuss rock-star response at book signings.

He wrote many more books before he died in 1991, but Cat remained his signature work. Seuss and his wife had no children. "He remained very much in touch with his own childhood," Nel says.

"He treats children as equals. That's the key to his success. He liked to say, 'I don't write for children. I write for people.' "

The Cat, like the Grinch, is based on Seuss' own character, Nel says. "He was mischievous. He liked practical jokes. He was not into following the rules."

The Cat is a classic American literary character type, the con artist or trickster, Nel says. He follows in the elusive footsteps of such characters as the Wizard of Oz and Harold Hill of The Music Man, whose deceptions bring imagination and joy to others.

Despite the countless hours he spent researching this book, Nel says, the Cat in the Hat and the cheerful chaos he creates always made him a little nervous.

"I always identified with the fish. I always thought, 'These kids are going to get in trouble!' "

Colette Bancroft can be reached at 727 893-8435 or bancroft@sptimes.com.

The book

The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats

By Philip Nel

Random House, 190 pages, $30 On the Web: www.catinthehat.com

 

Cat facts

-Dr. Seuss told many different stories about how The Cat in the Hat originated. He wrote two essays with different origin stories, which were published in the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune - on the same day.

-One of the earliest precedents in Seuss' work for a cat who walks upright is a clarinet-playing feline in a 1938 illustration for an article about Benny Goodman.

-In preliminary sketches, the Cat is smaller, about the size of the children.

-The Cat's bow tie droops when he's sad and pops up perkily when he's happy.

-On most right-hand pages, Seuss drew objects only partly visible or showed sounds, like the "Bump!" that signals the Cat's arrival, coming from off the page - a way to make kids want to turn to the next one.

[Last modified January 25, 2007, 12:52:06]

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