The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

The Cat in the Hat is the most famous children's book ever written.

It came into being because of complaints that the book most widely used to teach children how to read, Fun With Dick and Jane, depicted two squeaky clean children playing politely and respectfully with each other and with their dog Spot and saying things like "Run Spot Run."

Real children do not play like that. The famous book Why Johnny Can't Read criticized that book as being uninteresting to children.

Dr. Seuss (a penname of Theodor Seuss Geisel) was approached and asked to write a book that children ages 6 and 7 could read and understand and would find interesting.

He spent two years working on this rejecting many ideas because they used words that children that age might not understand. Finally, he came upon an idea by using the words Cat and Hat. He spent another year working on this idea and finally produced this book that was first published in March 1957.

This book was an instant success, but the textbook division of his publisher was disappointed because school teachers did not want to use this book in school for obvious reasons.

They preferred the nice and polite little children such Dick and Jane for school use.

However, The Cat and the Hat sold millions of copies in the bookstores so finally Dick and Jane had to killed off and put to sleep.

Spot was sent to the pound. Surprisingly, so many Dick and Jane books were thrown away that it has become a rare and expensive used book nowadays.