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!

Don't confuse it w/ the '72 version! This is the cat's meow!   November 11, 2003
 30 out of 32 found this review helpful

"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!


Cat and Chaos   September 25, 2004
 27 out of 51 found this review helpful

The Cat in the Hat has no other name--symbolic of his role as Chaos. He comes to visit two children, the predictable (as in "orderly") Boy and Girl at home. Inexplicably, the parents have left these two underaged children at home with no babysitter and no good sense to refuse entry to a patently dangerous beast who has regrettable taste in headgear. This is significant; despite the fact Mom And Dad represent Order in the equation, they introduce Chaos into the system by abandoning their kids. From that small oversight, the rest of the chaotic events unfold with Greek-tragedy-like inevitability, though with an unpredictable outcome. How like the universe this is; the stars in their courses, but the weather is utter madness.

The Cat roams rampant through the suburban home, pretty much doing what you and I and these two kids would LOVE to do but wouldn't dare--everything Mom and Dad tell you "not to." In psychological terms, the Cat is fulfilling the deepest desires of the children--to be really, really BAD, but without any consequences whatsoever. It's alluring, giddy, intoxicating, and it's SCARY, too. Disorder, like a roller-coaster ride, runs frighteningly and ultimately, downhill.

Just before the authoritarian ORDER figure Mom (much more symbolic of order than Dad--this IS the Fifties and you can bet she does all the housework) anyway, Mom's reappearance is imminent and the Cat uses an unlikely device to vacuum up the mess and restore all as it was--in essence reversing entropy. This is accomplished effortlessly and with no visible source of power. Here is a golden opportunity to discuss the Second Law of Thermodynamics* with your kids. A good exercise would be to try to calculate the energy that would have been required to run such a device. Question: would the device the Cat uses to clean the mess be able to run off a car battery, or would it require, oh, say, a fast breeder reactor the size of Yokohama? You do the math.

This endurable children's classic is essential to teaching the young about responsibility, temptation, thermodynamics and chaos theory. You can't begin too early.
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*The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is also known as entropy--or disorder.


Subversive, disturbing, and brilliant   December 4, 2000
 23 out of 26 found this review helpful

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.