The Cat in the Hat

Dr. Seuss was one of those rare creative geniuses who both entertained us and challenged us to open our minds. "The Cat in the Hat" is an indispensable part of the Seuss canon. A bizarre blending of Seuss's trademark illustrations with an eerily Kafkaesque plot, "Cat" will delight both children and adults.

The plot is simple: The narrator, a small boy, is left home on a rainy day with his sister Sally. But their boring day is interrupted by the Cat in the Hat, a weirdly anthropomorphic, talking feline who proceeds to turn their house into a chaotic playground. The illustrations--think Salvador Dali meets Beatrix Potter--are marvelous.

This book is simple enough for beginning readers, yet full of subtle touches that could keep an army of literary critics and psychologists busy analyzing it for decades. And that is the brilliance of Dr. Seuss. Buy a copy of the book for your favorite child, buy a second for your favorite adult, and keep a third for yourself.

This is the version of "The Cat in the Hat" that I remember, from constant re-runs on HBO in the early 1980s. This is the version of "The Cat in the Hat" that I think of, in the same way that my nephew, now 3 1/2, will think of the Mike Myers' movie as "his" "Cat in the Hat". So, I had to buy this DVD... not just to show him, but also for myself, because I hadn't seen the whole thing in about 20 years, and recapturing my own childhood is almost as important as influencing his!

First, I watched it by myself. Hmm. 1971 was a lot less jarring in 1983. In 2003, the music seemed a lot... more corny, I guess. The "Fun" song, the one song on the soundtrack not performed by Allan Sherman, is pretty bad. However, the rest of it held up just as I remembered it. I appreciate the special feature sing-along version of "Calculatus Eliminatus", a song I had committed to memory 20 years ago, and then forgot (displaced, no doubt, by the useless Paula Abdul song lyrics that crowded up my brain in the intervening years).

Then, I screened it for the nephew. He sat through the whole thing, mesmerized, looking away only occasionally to play with the tiny Thing 2 toy he got from Burger King. He was upset when it was over and kept asking to watch the extra features (the "Calculatus" sing-along, and the two-minute promo for the Myers movie). We essentially watched the whole cartoon twice.

The final verdict is that the 1971 "Cat in the Hat" holds up very well today, as both a 30 year-old and a 3 1/2 year-old see it. Obviously the animation is flat and dated -- but it's faithful to the book, and, of course, this is Dr. Seuss's own version (Ted Geisel was producer and scriptwriter for the affair). The music is also dated (of course), but kids won't notice, and the Sherman songs are still delightful. The educational component is also funny -- the Cat sings his name out in seven or eight different languages, and several more made-up ones.

In other words, add this katze-in-a-hut to your collection today.

"Very well...I'm a punk!" Ah, the Cat in the Hat classic songs finally on durable DVD! Buyers out there beware! Remember that this 1971 version is the animated TV version that we all remember, while the 1972 version is essentially the book being read out loud with some pans and close ups of the original pages. I bought the 1972 version last Xmas and my mouth hung open watching the book in action. However, up, up, up with this version! All the songs are classics and take me back to the days when it was okay to leave the kids at home alone. A great, great story!

I loved this as a kid, and I love it now. Not politically correct like much childrens' literature today--and that's its charm. The children are not naughty, but they certainly get themselves into a pickle with the strange cat who cheerfully enters their home, wreaking havoc while their mother is out for the afternoon. In short, the house gets wrecked, but the cat can clean up as fast as he can mess things up, and by the time mom gets home, everything's back to normal. the last line in the book is best of all: "What would you do if your mother asked you?" No moralizing here--just a simple question. This is children's literature with a capital L....buy it for your kids, buy it for yourself if you're adult.

Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.

To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. The Cat in the Hat was one of her picks.

I have always thought of this book as a metaphor for the sort of "make believe" thinking that children like to do and are good at. The setting is a cold rainy day, and the children's mother isn't home. I have always transformed that into they are playing in their room while their mother is busy elsewhere in the house. Suddenly, a mysterious cat arrives who can do remarkable jugging (until he drops everything) and brings in a fun box (with two little creatures who fly kites). A parental voice, however, is always present in the form of the children's fish who constantly warns them to get rid of the cat in the hat.

Suddenly, the mother is spotted about to reenter the house. The children are panic-stricken. The house is a mess! What to do? They are obviously about to be really in for it. I can feel the adrenaline rushing even now as I remember similar situations with friends as a child.

But then, the cat in the hat returns with a miraculous device which cleans everything up! And then he is gone, just as their mother steps in. She asks, "Did you have any fun? Tell me. What did you do?" The two children don't know what to say. They ask you what you would do if your mother asked you.

The ending is wonderful because it sets up a wonderful opportunity to talk about the story. Would the child let in the cat in the hat? Would the child ask the cat in the hat to leave and when? Was the fish correct in warning the children? What are the other reasons not to let strangers in? Why should you tell your mother if things go awry, or not? In the course of the discussion, fears that the story probably raises can be dealt with in a constructive way that reduces fear in the future and improves communication in the family. Most children have these kinds of fears, but aren't usually willing to bring them up. So the book gives you the excuse to work on improving their security.

This is one of the more difficult Dr. Seuss books for beginning readers, so you'll be reading this one to your child for a while. The appeal to the child is very much in the idea of playing unrestrained in the house. Almost no child is allowed to do that, and the consequences are pretty funny for the child if they are happening to someone else.

If you want to see the earliest versions of the cat in the hat character, be sure to see Dr. Seuss Goes to War which documents his work as a political cartoonist in World War II.

Then, encourage your child to use the book to come up with her or his own ideas about fun things to do as make-believe on a rainy day. Can they imagine a more fun make-believe visitor than the cat in the hat? What would the visitor do? If you ask these questions, you will extend your child's imagination now and for a lifetime.

Enjoy for the rest of your life!