The Cat in the Hat Turns 50…With a Bang - 1/11/2007 - Publishers WeeklyThe Cat in the Hat Turns 50…With a Bang
This story originally appeared in Children's Bookshelf on January 11, 2007 Sign up now!
by Sally Lodge, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 1/11/2007
With a loud "BUMP!" that made two very bored siblings jump, the irrepressible Cat in the Hat arrived on the children's book scene a half-century ago, revolutionizing the concept of the beginning reader and sounding the death knell to the stilted Dick and Jane primers. Widely credited with hooking a new generation (as well as subsequent ones) on reading, Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat has sold more than 10.5 million copies in its classic edition alone (not including massive book club sales). In an even more impressive tally, Dr. Seuss's books have been published in more than 20 languages, with over 250 million copies sold worldwide.
Random House Children's Books is commemorating the Cat's 50th anniversary with two January releases: The Cat in the Hat Party Edition, a 500,000-copy limited edition featuring a foil cover; and The Annotated Cat in the Hat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats, with an introduction and annotations by Philip Nel. And fittingly, the publisher is celebrating the occasion with a wide-scale literacy initiative supported by a national marketing and advertising campaign.
But first: a look back to Ted Geisel's creation of the tale that would reshape how youngsters learned to read. In a 1954 article in Life magazine, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey claimed that Johnny couldn't read because the Dick and Jane primers omnipresent in American schools were boring. Hersey challenged Dr. Seuss (who had already published nine children's books) and other authors to write an alternative reading primer that first graders wouldn't be able to put down.
Geisel took on the task, struggling to keep his vocabulary within the limited word list devised by Houghton Mifflin (which published a school edition of the book) for beginning readers. Though the book took him a year and a half to complete rather than the "week or so" he thought it would take, the author rose to the challenge, creating his rollicking rhymed verse using a mere 236 words.
Dr. Seuss at his desk.
Photo credit: Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LPThe Cat in the Hat was an instant success, making Dr. Seuss into a "rock star," says Kate Klimo, v-p and publisher of the Random House/Golden Books for Young Readers Group. "Random House sent him across the country in a helicopter to promote the book. It was a unilateral success among reviewers, librarians, parents and kids on the playground. Phyllis Cerf had the smarts to say to her husband Bennett that The Cat in the Hat should have its own imprint at Random House, and he gave her his blessing."
Beginning Beginner Books
She, Geisel and his wife Helen then founded Beginner Books, whose debut list in the fall of 1958 included The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and four other titles. The imprint soon grew to encompass the work of many acclaimed authors, among them P.D. Eastman, Stan and Jan Berenstain and Roy McKie. Noting that during the initial years of Beginner Books Geisel was not only its publisher but also its prime contributor, Klimo says, "He agonized over every single book he published, just as he agonized over every page he wrote and every illustration he drew. He took his work very seriously."
Ironically, Dr. Seuss scholar Philip Nel (whose earlier books include Dr. Seuss: American Icon for Continuum), remarks that Geisel complained that because he was a children's writer he was not taken seriously enough. "On the other hand," says Nel, "he was a perfectionist and was very hard on himself. He felt that nothing he did was quite good enough."
In creating The Annotated Cat, Nel notes, "I thought this would be a way to show people that it is fun to take Seuss seriously. The Cat in the Hat is one of the most important children's books of the last century and Dr. Seuss is the bestselling children's author in America. I wanted to show Dr. Seuss's mind at work and to reveal the complexity and richness of his books."
Nel imagines that Dr. Seuss would be pleased at the recognition that The Annotated Cat gives to his achievement, yet—again ironically—observes "he would likely also scoff at the thought of being taken seriously. He would mock the idea due to his insecurity about his work."
In addition to page-by-page annotations of both The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Returns, The Annotated Cat includes two original essays and a magazine story by Seuss, his draft material and sketches and archival photos. "I identify with Seuss thinking he could write The Cat in the Hat in no time at all," Nel muses. "When I started the book, I though it wouldn't take long to do the annotations. But it was really challenging. I wrote a lot, threw away a lot, rewrote again and re-rejected. I polished incessantly. I ended up with 160 pages of my own text for this book." Indeed it's a fairly familiar scenario: Geisel estimated that he routinely created more than 1000 pages of text and art for a 64-page picture book.
Planning an Anniversary
In recognition of the number of words Dr. Seuss incorporated in The Cat in the Hat, Random House has labeled the Cat's 50th-birthday literacy initiative "Project 236." Launched in partnership with Seuss's estate and First Book, a nonprofit organization founded to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first books, the program promotes a nationwide read-aloud (in schools, stores and libraries) of The Cat in the Hat at 2:36 EST on March 2, Dr. Seuss's birthday and the 10th anniversary of the National Education Association's annual Read Across America event.
The publisher has pledged to donate one Random House children's book to First Book for every purchase of a Dr. Seuss title made between January 1 and May 1. In addition, the house has created mail-in birthday postcards, available online at www.catinthehat.com, which are included in a 2007 Read Across America Event Kit. The kit has a Cat in the Hat 50th Anniversary theme and will be sent to 35,000 retailers. A birthday card is also inserted in each copy of The Cat in the Hat Party Edition. For every birthday card it receives, the house will also donate one book to First Book.
The publisher has anniversary counter and floor displays available for retailers. And Dr. Seuss's kindred creative spirits are also encouraged to get into the act: Random House has invited contemporary artists to pay tribute to Seuss by using his Cat, the iconic hat and the same 236 words as inspiration to create a work in his honor. These Seuss-inspired creations will be auctioned at an event later this year, the proceeds from which will benefit First Book.
All of which should ensure that the 50th anniversary of the top-hatted Cat's arrival—announced by that auspicious bump—is celebrated with a bang.
