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The Cat in the Hat

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General Literature

   The Cat in the Hat is a fictional cat created by Dr. Seuss. He appears
   in five of Seuss's rhymed children's books:
     * The Cat in the Hat
     * The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
     * The Cat in the Hat Song Book
     * The Cat's Quizzer
     * I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

The Cat in the Hat

   In the first book in the series (The Cat in the Hat, 1957), the Cat
   brings a cheerful and exuberant form of chaos to the household of two
   young children one rainy day while their mother is out. Bringing with
   him 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 is 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.

   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 1626 word story includes only 236 unique words of which 54 occur
   exactly once and 33 occur twice. The most common words, "the", "and",
   "i" and "not" occur more than 40 times each. The longest words are
   "something" and "playthings".

History

   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.

   Dr. Seuss in an interview he gave in Arizona magazine in June 1981
   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 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."

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.

Adaptations

Television

Film

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.

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

Editions

   All were published by Random House.
     * The Cat in the Hat:
          + ISBN 0-394-80001-X ( hardcover, 1957, Large Type Edition)
          + ISBN 0-394-90001-4 ( library binding, 1966, Large Type
            Edition)
          + ISBN 0-394-89218-6 (hardcover with audio cassette, 1987)
          + ISBN 0-679-86348-6 (hardcover, 1993)
          + ISBN 0-679-89267-2 (hardcover, 1999)

     * The Cat in the Hat Comes Back:
          + ISBN 0-394-80002-8 (hardcover, 1958)

     * The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats
       introduction and annotations by Phil Nel
          + ISBN 978-037-583-369-4 (hardcover, 2007)

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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