The Start

Author John Hersey wrote an article in Life Magazine condemning Dick and Jane type writing typical to kids books. He challenged Dr. Seuss to write a kid’s book with a confined vocabulary that still appealed to children. So Dr. Seuss picked up a public school vocabulary list and wrote away. Apparently writing the story was so hard he almost gave up, it took him a year to complete it.

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Racist undertones, is the Cat black?

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It is clear that the cat borrows traits from minstrelsy. He also stands out as the “black” cat who is not supposed to be in the white house​​. Annie Williams was supposedly the inspiration for the cat character- she was African-American, wore white gloves, and had a sly smile. The red bowtie is from Krazy Kat, a black cat from a biracial illustrator.

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Though the characteristics of the cat point to blackface and minstrelsy, that is not always enough to condemn it as racially charged. There is plenty of support to show that Theodor Geisel was racist, at least to some extent. The art surrounding him also would have had an influence on him. Geisel would have been highly influenced by racial depictions such as “The Jazz Singer”, “Birth of a Nation”, and “The Hole Book” by Peter Newell. This extended into his own work such as a minstrel show he wrote for high school. It was called "Chicopee Surprise" and he acted in it in blackface. He also had racist cartoons in the Dartmouth paper (read more about it on the page about Dr. Seuss).

 

Michelle H. Martin, the Beverly Cleary professor for children and youth services at the information school at the University of Washington in Seattle- says that old children’s books are alright, as long as teachers know how to be culturally sensitive. 

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The Cat in the Hat as a didactic tale

Early american literature and public service announcements used threats of death, hell, or pain to push kids away from things that are wrong such as alcohol (per the Temperance movement) or sins. The Cat in the Hat presents an unstoppable character (called a “horror” character in this dissertation). "And represents the turning point between historical didactic horror literature for children in which the message is deliberate and forceful and contemporary horror literature for children in which the message seems almost accidental.” This point is easy agree with, that the didactic nature of the story is not necessarily purposeful. Knowing the back story of writing the book, Seuss did not set out to teach kids a lesson other than how to read. 

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Children’s literature is a product of adults, thus, records the fears of adults rather than children. It serves as a teaching lesson from one generation to another. Child characters in horror literature don’t have adults to depend on or be saved by. Because of this, they must face threats and make decisions on their own​. According to Anne Scott MacLeod, "books of fiction for children are of their time. However little they may deal directly with social issues, they inevitably convey a good deal about prevailing social attitudes and problems".

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