Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Cat in the Hat!
Happy Birthday to you!

On this day in 1957, Dr. Seuss published what would soon be the quintessential children's book, The Cat in the Hat.

At the time, schools across the country were using See Spot Run as their champion to engage early-readers. The problem was that See Spot Run was rather (ahem) boring.

In 1954, a journalist named John Hersey wrote an article for Life Magazine that stated that the reason children were such bad readers (in his opinion) was that they weren't reading anything very exciting or imaginative. In his article, he basically dared popular children's book authors of the time to come up with a book that would have kids reading on the edge of their seats. Dr. Seuss went for it.

Dr. Seuss (his real name was Theodor Geisel) took 2 and a half years to write his now classic book about a mischievous cat who comes to play with two children and their angry goldfish while their mother is away. He used a vocabulary list of words for early readers to write his story. He used only 236 words and many of them were only one syllable!

So The Cat in the Hat has been around for 50 years. What does that mean, really? Well, for starters, what does it mean to you? Do you remember growing up and having your parents read you this wonderful story? Or perhaps you remember reading it yourself? Write to us at word@weeklyreader.com. Tell us your thoughts. Or you can comment below.

Happy Birthday, you rascal!