The Cat in the Hat

Introduction

When I realized in my pediatrician’s waiting room that my Kindergarten-aged son was able to read basic books, I decided that it was time to buy him a few.

I knew I wanted Dr. Seuss books, as the first book he read was “Green Eggs and Ham,” so I went off to Wal-Mart to look into them. When I saw that they were almost $10 brand new, I decided to look at eBay.

While looking around eBay, I saw “Green Eggs and Ham” bundled with “The Cat in the Hat.” I was able to purchase these two books for less than the cost of one brand new one!

Nuts & Bolts

Author
Theodor Giesel, better known as Dr. Seuss, writes “The Cat in the Hat”. He is one of the most beloved authors in all of children’s book history!

Publisher and Copyright
Random House Publishing produced “The Cat in the Hat”, and it bears the copyright date of 1957. This book has been entertaining children for many years!

Length
“The Cat in the Hat” contains 61 pages of one of the silliest rhyming stories ever!

The Story

Disclaimer--The summary here will be written taking advantage of some of Dr. Seuss’s silly rhymes. I am not copying word for word, just trying to give you a sense of the rhyming silliness that makes this story so catchy.

“The Cat in the Hat” is the silly tale of a boy (whom I shall refer to as Boy henceforth) and girl (named Sally) who are home alone for the day. There was no sun and it was to wet to play, so that had to sit inside all that cold and wet day!

When it’s too wet to go out and too cold to play ball, what choice do they have but to do nothing at all? All they could do was sit, but they did not like it even a bit.

All of a sudden, someone stepped in on their mat. When they look, they saw a cat in a hat! The cat told them that even though it wasn’t sunny, they would have lots of fun that was funny.

To show them some tricks, that was that cats wish. But tricks went against the better judgment of the fish!

Up, up, up with a fish is they game he would play for the kids in the house on the cold and wet day! So he raised up the fish and a cup and a cake, also several other things—including a rake!

The Cat in the Hat fell off of the ball, and when he did Sally and Boy saw all the things fall!

The fish wanted him to go, the Cat in the hat wanted to stay. And so that cat came up with a new game to play. This game was supposed to be fun, it was totally new. It was called ‘fun in a box’ starring Thing One and Thing Two!

Oh, the things the Things bumped, oh the things the Things hit. They made a huge mess the fish did not like one bit!

Uh-oh, Mother’s coming home! The Things have to leave, but luckily the Cat in the Hat has one more trick up his sleeve! He tidies the mess, which relieves the kids’ stress. They decide it might not be a good idea to tell their mom about their day, she just might not believe what they say!

Our Thoughts

From the first time I read this story to my children, they were hooked. My older two boys are forever bringing me this book and begging me to read it.

My oldest son can read some of it himself, but it’s a bit longer than he’s really ready to read by himself yet. He gets overwhelmed after he gets halfway through, so I take over and finish it from there.

The story has a flowing rhyme that runs throughout the book, it’s easy to read. It just rolls right off your tongue without sounding forced as some rhymes do. There is not a single place in the book where it appears that Dr. Seuss is attempting to ‘force’ a rhyme!

Recommendation

This book from 1957 is still being read today for a reason. The reason is that it is one of the best children’s rhyming books available!

I give this book my highest recommendation!