The Cat in the Hat
Encyclopedia
The Cat in the Hat is a children's book by Dr. Seuss
and perhaps the most famous, featuring a tall, anthropomorphic
, mischievous cat, wearing a tall, red and white-striped hat and a red bow tie. He also carries a pale blue umbrella. With the series of Beginner Books
that The Cat inaugurated, Seuss promoted both his name and the cause of elementary literacy in the United States of America. The eponymous cat appears in six of Seuss's rhymed children's books:
Theodor Geisel, writing as Dr. Seuss, created The Cat in the Hat in response to the May 25, 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
:
Hersey’s arguments were enumerated over ten pages of Life magazine, which was a leading periodical in the U.S. during that time. After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma connected with student reading levels, Hersey asked toward the end of the article:
Ted Geisel's friend William Ellsworth Spaulding, who was then the director of Houghton Mifflin's education division, invited Geisel to dinner in Boston and "proposed that Ted write and illustrate such a book for six- and seven-year olds who had already mastered the basic mechanics of reading. 'Write me a story that first-graders can't put down!" [Spaulding] challenged." Spaulding supplied Geisel with a list of 348 words that every six year old should know, and insisted that the book's vocabulary be limited to 225 words. Nine months later Dr. Seuss finished The Cat In The Hat, which used 223 words that appeared on the list plus 13 words that did not. Because Geisel was under contract with Random House, Houghton Mifflin retained the school rights to The Cat in the Hat and Random House retained the rights to trade sales.
The story is 1629 words in length and uses a vocabulary of only 236 distinct words, of which 54 occur 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.
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 added 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 regretted the association of his book and the "look say" reading method adopted during the Dewey
revolt in the 1920s. He expressed the opinion that "... killing phonics
was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country."
, some milk
, a cake
, three books, the Fish
, a rake
, a toy boat
, a toy man
, a red fan
, and his umbrella
while he's on a ball
to the chagrin of the fish—to amuse the children, with mixed results. Then, the Cat gets a box from outside. Inside the box are two creatures named Thing One and Thing Two, who begin to fly kites in the house. The Cat's antics are vainly opposed by the family pet, a sapient and articulate fish. The children (Sally and her unnamed older brother, who serves as the narrator) ultimately prove exemplary latchkey children
, capturing the Things with a net and bringing the Cat under control. To make up for the chaos he has caused, he cleans up the house on his way out, disappearing a second 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 The 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).
More than 11 million copies of The Cat in the Hat have been printed. It has been translated into more than 12 different languages.
In particular, it has been translated into Latin
with the title Cattus Petasatus and into Yiddish with the title "di Kats der Payats".
. On this occasion, instead of Thing One and Thing Two, he brings along Little Cat A, nested inside his hat
. Little Cat A doffs his hat to reveal Little Cat B, who reveals C, and so on down to the microscopic Little Cat Z, who turns out to hold the key to the plot in his hat. The crisis involves a pink bathtub ring and other pink residue left by the Cat after he snacks on a cake in the bathtub with the water running. Preliminary attempts to clean it up fail as they only transfer the mess elsewhere, including a dress, the wall, a pair of ten dollar shoes, a rug, the bed, and then eventually outside. A "spot killing" war then takes place between the mess and Little Cats A through V, who use an arsenal of primitive weapons including pop guns, bats, and a lawnmower. Unfortunately, the initial battle to rid the mess only makes it into an entire yard-covering spot. Little Cats V, W, X, and Y then take off their hats to uncover microscopic Little Cat Z. Z takes his hat off and unleashes a "Voom", which cleans up the back yard and puts all of the other Little Cats back into the big Cat in the Hat's hat.
The book ends in a burst of flamboyant versification, with the full list of little cats arranged into a metrically-perfect rhymed quatrain
, designed to teach the reader the alphabet.
Little Cats A, B and C were also characters in the 1996 TV series The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss
(Little Cat N also made an appearance, but only once and some of the alphabetical cats appeared in Season 2 regularly as Little Cat Z began to be visible).
The Cat in The Hat Comes Back was part of the Beginner Book Video series along with There's a Wocket in My Pocket! and Fox in Socks
.
Adrian Edmondson
narrated both Cat in the Hat stories for a HarperCollins audiobook that also includes Fox in Socks
and Green Eggs and Ham
.
. Geisel was the president and editor. Beginner Books was chartered as a series of books oriented toward various stages of early reading development. (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.) The second book in the series, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, published in 1958, was nearly as popular.
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 included Stan and Jan Berenstain
, P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Helen Palmer (Mr. Geisel's wife). The Beginner Books dominated the children's picturebook market of the 1960s, 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.
At the end of each book, after the Cat in the Hat's teaching is done, there is a glossary on some of the words used, an index, and a list of suggested books, from other publishers, that cover the topic each book covered. While the Learning Library Series kept Dick and Sally intact, they've made changes to Thing 1 and Thing 2. In the original The Cat in the Hat book and the special, Thing 1 and Thing 2 had plain white skin and blue hair and wore red sleepers. In "The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library," the illustrators have changed the Things' appearance so that they have pink skin and yellow hair and wear blue sleepers.
and directed by Bo Welch
, and stars Mike Myers
in the title role of the Cat in the Hat, and Dakota Fanning
as Sally. Sally's brother, who is not named in the book, is known in this version as "Conrad" and played by Spencer Breslin
.
While the basic plot of the live-action adaptation of The Cat in the Hat rotates around that of the book, the film filled out its 82 minutes by adding new subplots and characters quite different from those of the original story, similar to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Reviews were critically negative criticizing the film's crude humor, language, and mature content, and the film was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards
.
is a musical that combines different Dr. Seuss stories together. The Cat In The Hat plays the narrator, as well as a few minor characters. In the original Broadway
production, this role was played by David Shiner
.
brought this electronic version of the book to the Mac OS X.
park in Orlando, Florida, the ride takes guests on a colorful journey into the story of The Cat in the Hat.
compared the impasse over a bill to reform immigration with the mess created by the Cat in The Cat in the Hat. He read lines of the book from the Senate floor, quoting "'That is good,' said the fish. 'He's gone away, yes. But your mother will come. She will find this big mess.'" He then carried forward his analogy hoping the impasse would be straightened out for "If you go back and read Dr. Seuss, the cat manages to clean up the mess." Reid's hopes did not come about for as one analyst put it "the Cat in the Hat did not have to contend with cloture
."
. The original edition was a joint publication with Houghton Mifflin
.
The first edition was published in 1957, prior to the establishment of ISBNs. The first edition can be identified by the '200/200' in the top right corner of the front dust jacket flap, signifying the $2.00 selling price. The Cat In The Hat sold for $2.00 for the first year of publication, then was reduced to $1.95 with the establishment of Beginner Books in 1958. According to the Children's Picturebook Price Guide, 2006-2007 edition, The first edition Cat In The Hat has an estimated market value of $4000.
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
and perhaps the most famous, featuring a tall, anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
, mischievous cat, wearing a tall, red and white-striped hat and a red bow tie. He also carries a pale blue umbrella. With the series of Beginner Books
Beginner Books
Beginner Books is the Random House imprint for young children ages 4-8, co-founded by Phyllis Cerf with Ted Geisel, more often known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife Helen Palmer Geisel.Their first book was Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat...
that The Cat inaugurated, Seuss promoted both his name and the cause of elementary literacy in the United States of America. The eponymous cat appears in six 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!
- Daisy-Head Mayzie
History
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine article by John Hersey
John Hersey
John Richard Hersey was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer and journalist considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling devices of the novel are fused with non-fiction reportage...
, 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
Primer (textbook)
A primer is a first textbook for teaching of reading, such as an alphabet book or basal reader. The word also is used more broadly to refer to any book that presents the most basic elements of a subject....
:
In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with six 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 a leading periodical in the U.S. 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, TennielJohn TennielSir John Tenniel was a British illustrator, graphic humorist and political cartoonist whose work was prominent during the second half of England’s 19th century. Tenniel is considered important to the study of that period’s social, literary, and art histories...
, Howard PyleHoward PyleHoward Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...
, "Theodor S. GeiselDr. SeussTheodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
".
Ted Geisel's friend William Ellsworth Spaulding, who was then the director of Houghton Mifflin's education division, invited Geisel to dinner in Boston and "proposed that Ted write and illustrate such a book for six- and seven-year olds who had already mastered the basic mechanics of reading. 'Write me a story that first-graders can't put down!" [Spaulding] challenged." Spaulding supplied Geisel with a list of 348 words that every six year old should know, and insisted that the book's vocabulary be limited to 225 words. Nine months later Dr. Seuss finished The Cat In The Hat, which used 223 words that appeared on the list plus 13 words that did not. Because Geisel was under contract with Random House, Houghton Mifflin retained the school rights to The Cat in the Hat and Random House retained the rights to trade sales.
The story is 1629 words in length and uses a vocabulary of only 236 distinct words, of which 54 occur 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.
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 added 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 regretted the association of his book and the "look say" reading method adopted during the Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
revolt in the 1920s. He expressed the opinion that "... killing phonics
Phonics
Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations...
was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country."
The Cat in the Hat
The Cat in the Hat (1957) is the first book featuring the title character. In it the Cat brings a cheerful, exotic and exuberant form of chaos to a household of two young kids, brother and sister, one rainy day while their mother leaves them unattended. The Cat performs all sorts of wacky tricks—the Cat at one point balances a teacupTeacup
A teacup is a small cup, with or without a handle, generally a small one that may be grasped with the thumb and one or two fingers. It is typically made of a ceramic material. It is usually part of a set, composed of a cup and a matching saucer. These in turn may be part of a tea set in...
, some milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
, a cake
Cake
Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet and enriched baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape...
, three books, the Fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, a rake
Rake (tool)
A rake is a broom for outside; an horticultural implement consisting of a toothed bar fixed transversely to a handle, and used to collect leaves, hay, grass, etc., and, in gardening, for loosening the soil, light weeding and levelling, removing dead grass from...
, a toy boat
Boat
A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...
, a toy man
Man
The term man is used for an adult human male . However, man is sometimes used to refer to humanity as a whole...
, a red fan
Fan (implement)
A hand-held fan is an implement used to induce an airflow for the purpose of cooling or refreshing oneself. Any broad, flat surface waved back-and-forth will create a small airflow and therefore can be considered a rudimentary fan...
, and his umbrella
Umbrella
An umbrella or parasol is a canopy designed to protect against rain or sunlight. The term parasol usually refers to an item designed to protect from the sun; umbrella refers to a device more suited to protect from rain...
while he's on a ball
Ball
A ball is a round, usually spherical but sometimes ovoid, object with various uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used for simpler activities, such as catch, marbles and juggling...
to the chagrin of the fish—to amuse the children, with mixed results. Then, the Cat gets a box from outside. Inside the box are two creatures named Thing One and Thing Two, who begin to fly kites in the house. The Cat's antics are vainly opposed by the family pet, a sapient and articulate fish. The children (Sally and her unnamed older brother, who serves as the narrator) ultimately prove exemplary latchkey children
Latchkey kid
A latchkey kid or latchkey child is a child who returns from school to an empty home because his or her parent or parents are away at work, or a child who is often left at home with little or no parental supervision.- History of the term :...
, capturing the Things with a net and bringing the Cat under control. To make up for the chaos he has caused, he cleans up the house on his way out, disappearing a second 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 The 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
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
, 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
Anapestic tetrameter
Anapestic tetrameter is a poetic meter that has four anapestic metrical feet per line. Each foot has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable...
(see Dr. Seuss's meters).
More than 11 million copies of The Cat in the Hat have been printed. It has been translated into more than 12 different languages.
In particular, it has been translated into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
with the title Cattus Petasatus and into Yiddish with the title "di Kats der Payats".
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
The Cat in the Hat made a return appearance in this 1958 sequelSequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
. On this occasion, instead of Thing One and Thing Two, he brings along Little Cat A, nested inside his hat
Hat
A hat is a head covering. It can be worn for protection against the elements, for ceremonial or religious reasons, for safety, or as a fashion accessory. In the past, hats were an indicator of social status...
. Little Cat A doffs his hat to reveal Little Cat B, who reveals C, and so on down to the microscopic Little Cat Z, who turns out to hold the key to the plot in his hat. The crisis involves a pink bathtub ring and other pink residue left by the Cat after he snacks on a cake in the bathtub with the water running. Preliminary attempts to clean it up fail as they only transfer the mess elsewhere, including a dress, the wall, a pair of ten dollar shoes, a rug, the bed, and then eventually outside. A "spot killing" war then takes place between the mess and Little Cats A through V, who use an arsenal of primitive weapons including pop guns, bats, and a lawnmower. Unfortunately, the initial battle to rid the mess only makes it into an entire yard-covering spot. Little Cats V, W, X, and Y then take off their hats to uncover microscopic Little Cat Z. Z takes his hat off and unleashes a "Voom", which cleans up the back yard and puts all of the other Little Cats back into the big Cat in the Hat's hat.
The book ends in a burst of flamboyant versification, with the full list of little cats arranged into a metrically-perfect rhymed quatrain
Quatrain
A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...
, designed to teach 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 Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss
The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss is an American live-action/puppet television series based on characters created by Dr. Seuss, produced by Jim Henson Productions. It aired for two seasons on the Nick Jr. Block on Nickelodeon...
(Little Cat N also made an appearance, but only once and some of the alphabetical cats appeared in Season 2 regularly as Little Cat Z began to be visible).
The Cat in The Hat Comes Back was part of the Beginner Book Video series along with There's a Wocket in My Pocket! and Fox in Socks
Fox in Socks
Fox in Socks is a children's book by Dr. Seuss, first published in 1965. It features two main characters, Fox and Knox, who speak almost entirely in densely rhyming tongue-twisters....
.
Adrian Edmondson
Adrian Edmondson
Adrian Charles "Ade" Edmondson is an English comedian. He is probably best known for his comedic roles in the television series The Young Ones and Bottom , for which he also wrote together with his long-time collaboration partner Rik Mayall.-Early life:Edmondson, the second of four children, was...
narrated both Cat in the Hat stories for a HarperCollins audiobook that also includes Fox in Socks
Fox in Socks
Fox in Socks is a children's book by Dr. Seuss, first published in 1965. It features two main characters, Fox and Knox, who speak almost entirely in densely rhyming tongue-twisters....
and Green Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs and Ham is a best-selling and critically acclaimed book by Dr. Seuss, first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2001, according to Publishers Weekly, it was the fourth-best-selling English-language children's book of all time....
.
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 BooksBeginner Books
Beginner Books is the Random House imprint for young children ages 4-8, co-founded by Phyllis Cerf with Ted Geisel, more often known as Dr. Seuss, and his wife Helen Palmer Geisel.Their first book was Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat...
. Geisel was the president and editor. Beginner Books was chartered as a series of books oriented toward various stages of early reading development. (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.) The second book in the series, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, published in 1958, was nearly as popular.
Springing from this series of beginning readers were such standards as A Fly Went By (1958), Sam and the Firefly
Sam and the Firefly
- Plot :Sam, an owl, wakes up one night looking for someone to play with. However, since it is the middle of the night, all the creatures are asleep. Sam then comes across a series of flying lights, one of which hits Sam in the head. It is Gus, the firefly. Gus shows Sam the trick he can do,...
(1958), Green Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs and Ham is a best-selling and critically acclaimed book by Dr. Seuss, first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2001, according to Publishers Weekly, it was the fourth-best-selling English-language children's book of all time....
(1960), Go, Dog. Go!
Go, Dog. Go!
Go, Dog. Go! is a 1961 children's book written and illustrated by P. D. Eastman.The book describes the actions and interactions of a group of highly mobile dogs, who operate cars and other conveyances in pursuit of work, play, and a final mysterious goal: a dog party.The book introduces concepts...
(1961), Hop on Pop
Hop on Pop
Hop on Pop is a 1963 children's picture book by Dr. Seuss . It was published as part of the Random House Beginner Books series, and is subtitled "The Simplest Seuss for Youngest Use"...
(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 included Stan and Jan Berenstain
Stan and Jan Berenstain
Stan and Jan Berenstain were American writers and illustrators best known for creating the children's book series the Berenstain Bears....
, P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Helen Palmer (Mr. Geisel's wife). The Beginner Books dominated the children's picturebook market of the 1960s, 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.
The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library
In 1998, Random House launched a series titled "The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library." In each book, the Cat in the Hat, Thing 1 and Thing 2, teach Dick (the boy's name in The Cat in the Hat was not revealed, but the 1971 animated special suggested it was Conrad) and Sally about the book's topic. There are even side notes that are narrated by Thing 1 and Thing 2. In the book Clam-I-Am, the Cat in the Hat takes a break, and Dick and Sally's beloved pet, Norval the Fish, (the fish's name in the cartoon special was Karlos K. Krinklebein) along with the Cat in the Hat and the Things, teaches the children about life at the beach.At the end of each book, after the Cat in the Hat's teaching is done, there is a glossary on some of the words used, an index, and a list of suggested books, from other publishers, that cover the topic each book covered. While the Learning Library Series kept Dick and Sally intact, they've made changes to Thing 1 and Thing 2. In the original The Cat in the Hat book and the special, Thing 1 and Thing 2 had plain white skin and blue hair and wore red sleepers. In "The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library," the illustrators have changed the Things' appearance so that they have pink skin and yellow hair and wear blue sleepers.
Animated media
- The Cat in the HatThe Cat in the Hat (TV special)The Cat in the Hat is an animated musical television special first aired on CBS on March 10, 1971, based on the 1957 Dr. Seuss' children's book of the same name and produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises...
, a 1971 American animated musical television special - The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the HatThe Grinch Grinches the Cat in the HatThe Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat is an animated musical television special and crossover starring two of Dr. Seuss' famous characters, The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat. It premiered on May 20, 1982 on ABC and won two Emmys.-Plot:...
, a 1982 American animated musical television special; a crossover in which the Cat in the Hat meets the Grinch. - The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! is an American/Canadian/British animated television series that premiered August 7, 2010 on Treehouse TV in Canada, on September 6, 2010 on PBS Kids in the US and also in the UK on CITV and Cartoonito...
, a 2010 animated television series seen on PBS Kids in the United States and Treehouse TV in Canada starring Martin Short in the role of the Cat.
Film
The film adaptation of the book was released in 2003. It was produced by Brian GrazerBrian Grazer
Brian Thomas Grazer is an Academy Award-winning American film and television producer who co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 with Ron Howard. Together they have produced many acclaimed films, including Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind .- Career :Brian Grazer began his career as a producer...
and directed by Bo Welch
Bo Welch
Robert W. "Bo" Welch III is an American motion picture production designer and director.Welch was born in Yardley, Pennsylvania. He worked as a production designer on the Tim Burton films Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and Batman Returns, as well as A Little Princess and Men in Black, among...
, and stars Mike Myers
Mike Myers (actor)
Michael John "Mike" Myers is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer of British parentage...
in the title role of the Cat in the Hat, and Dakota Fanning
Dakota Fanning
Hannah Dakota Fanning , better known as Dakota Fanning, is an American actress. Fanning's breakthrough performance was in I Am Sam in 2001. As a child actress, she appeared in high-profile films such as Man on Fire, War of the Worlds, and Charlotte's Web...
as Sally. Sally's brother, who is not named in the book, is known in this version as "Conrad" and played by Spencer Breslin
Spencer Breslin
Spencer Breslin is an American teen actor and musician.-Early life:Breslin was born in New York City, the son of Kim, a personal manager, and Michael Breslin, a telecommunications expert...
.
While the basic plot of the live-action adaptation of The Cat in the Hat rotates around that of the book, the film filled out its 82 minutes by adding new subplots and characters quite different from those of the original story, similar to How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Reviews were critically negative criticizing the film's crude humor, language, and mature content, and the film was nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards
Golden Raspberry Awards
A Golden Raspberry Award, or Razzie for short, is an award presented in recognition of the worst in movies. Founded by American copywriter and publicist John J.B. Wilson in 1981, the annual Razzie Awards ceremony in Los Angeles precedes the corresponding Academy Awards ceremony by one day...
.
Seussical the Musical
Seussical the MusicalSeussical
is a musical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty based on the books of Dr. Seuss that debuted on Broadway in 2000. The play's story is a rather complex amalgamation of many of Seuss's most famous books. After a Broadway run, the production spawned two US national tours and a UK tour...
is a musical that combines different Dr. Seuss stories together. The Cat In The Hat plays the narrator, as well as a few minor characters. In the original Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production, this role was played by David Shiner
David Shiner
David Shiner may refer to:* David Shiner , American clown* David Shiner , Canadian politician...
.
Educational CD game
Living Books has created an educational CD game of the story, guided by animated characters. Software MacKievSoftware MacKiev
Software MacKiev is a company specialized in consumer and educational software development and publishing for Macintosh, Windows, and mobile platforms...
brought this electronic version of the book to the Mac OS X.
Ride
Opened in 1999 at Universal Studios' Islands of AdventureIslands of Adventure
Universal's Islands of Adventure is a theme park located in Orlando, Florida. It opened May 28, 1999 as part of an expansion that, along with CityWalk Entertainment District, the Portofino Bay Hotel, and Hard Rock hotel, converted Universal Studios Florida into the Universal Orlando Resort...
park in Orlando, Florida, the ride takes guests on a colorful journey into the story of The Cat in the Hat.
Android App
The Cat in the Hat also adapted into a popular android paid app and listed as one of the popular paid apps at Android market.Quoted in the U.S. Senate
In the 110th Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry ReidHarry Reid
Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...
compared the impasse over a bill to reform immigration with the mess created by the Cat in The Cat in the Hat. He read lines of the book from the Senate floor, quoting "'That is good,' said the fish. 'He's gone away, yes. But your mother will come. She will find this big mess.'" He then carried forward his analogy hoping the impasse would be straightened out for "If you go back and read Dr. Seuss, the cat manages to clean up the mess." Reid's hopes did not come about for as one analyst put it "the Cat in the Hat did not have to contend with cloture
Cloture
In parliamentary procedure, cloture is a motion or process aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. It is also called closure or, informally, a guillotine. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. Clôture is French for "ending" or "conclusion"...
."
Editions
All were published by Random HouseRandom House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
. The original edition was a joint publication with Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
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- The Cat in the Hat:
- First Edition
The first edition was published in 1957, prior to the establishment of ISBNs. The first edition can be identified by the '200/200' in the top right corner of the front dust jacket flap, signifying the $2.00 selling price. The Cat In The Hat sold for $2.00 for the first year of publication, then was reduced to $1.95 with the establishment of Beginner Books in 1958. According to the Children's Picturebook Price Guide, 2006-2007 edition, The first edition Cat In The Hat has an estimated market value of $4000.
- 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 Philip NelPhilip NelPhilip Nel is an American scholar of children's literature and Professor of English at Kansas State University. He is best known for his work on Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter, which have led to his being a guest on such media programs as CBS Sunday Morning, NPR's Morning Edition and Talk of the...
- ISBN 978-0-375-83369-4 (hardcover, 2007)
See also
- Grinch
- Horton the ElephantHorton the ElephantHorton the Elephant is a fictional character from the books Horton Hatches the Egg and Horton Hears a Who!, both by Dr. Seuss. Horton is a kind, sweet-natured elephant who cares about other animals or people...
- Dr. Seuss MemorialDr. Seuss MemorialThe Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden is a sculpture garden in Springfield, Massachusetts. Located at The Quadrangle – an extraordinary cultural grouping that features three world-class museums and two regional history museums – the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden honors the...