The cat in the hat

The Cat in the Hat is a children's book by Dr. Seuss, featuring a tall, anthropomorphic, mischievous cat, wearing a tall, red and white striped hat, a bowtie, and an umbrella. With the series of Beginner Books that The Cat inaugurated, Seuss promoted both his name and the cause of elementary literacy in the United States. The eponymous cat appears in six of Seuss's rhymed children's books:
In the first book featuring the character (The Cat in the Hat, 1957), the Cat brings a cheerful, exotic and exuberant form of chaos to a household of two young children one rainy day while their mother leaves them unattended. Bringing with him two creatures appropriately named Thing One and Thing Two, the Cat performs all sorts of wacky tricks to amuse the children, with mixed results. The Cat's antics are vainly opposed by the family pet, who is a sentient and articulate goldfish. The children (Sally and her older brother, who serves as the narrator) ultimately prove exemplary latchkey children, capturing the Things and bringing the Cat under control. To make up for the chaos he has caused, he cleans up the house on his way out, disappearing seconds before the mother arrives.
The book has been popular since its publication, and a logo featuring the Cat adorns all Dr. Seuss publications and animated films produced after The Cat in the Hat. The Cat holds up a cup, some milk, a cake, three books, the Fish, a rake, a toy boat, a toy man, a red fan and his umbrella while he's on a ball.
Seuss wrote the book because he felt that there should be more entertaining and fun material for beginning readers. From a literary point of view, the book is a feat of skill, since it simultaneously maintains a strict triple meter, keeps to a tiny vocabulary, and tells an entertaining tale. Literary critics occasionally write recreational essays about the work, having fun with issues such as the absence of the mother and the psychological or symbolic characterizations of Cat, Things, and Fish. This book is written in a style common to Dr. Seuss, anapestic tetrameter (see Dr. Seuss's meters).
More than 10 million copies of The Cat in the Hat have been printed. It has been translated into more than 12 different languages. In particular, it has been translated into Latin with the title Cattus Petasatus and into Yiddish with the title "di Kats der Payats".
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
The Cat in the Hat made a return appearance in this 1958 sequel. On this occasion, he leaves Thing One and Thing Two at home, but does bring along Little Cat A, nested inside his hat. Little Cat A doffs his hat to reveal Little Cat B, who in turn reveals C, and so on down to the microscopic Little Cat Z, who turns out to be the key to the plot. The crisis involves a pink bathtub ring and other pink residue left by the Cat after he snacks on a cake in the bathtub with the water running. Preliminary attempts to clean it up fail as they only spread the mess elsewhere, including a dress, the wall, a pair of shoes, the bed, and then eventually outside where a "spot killing" war takes place between the mess, the main cat, 22 smaller cats (Little Cats A through V), and an arsenal of primitive weapons including pop guns, bats, and a lawnmower. Unfortunately, the initial battle to rid the mess only makes it into an entire yard covering spot. But then Little Cats V W, X, and Y take off their hats to uncover Little Cat Z, who takes his hat off and unleashes a "Voom" which cleans up the back yard and puts all of the other Little Cats back into the Cat in the Hat's hat.
The book ends in a burst of flamboyant versification, with the full list of little cats arranged into a metrically-perfect rhymed quatrain. It teaches the reader the alphabet.
Little Cats A, B and C were also characters in the 1996 TV series The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss.
The Cat in The Hat Comes Back was part of the Beginner Book Video series along with There's a Wocket in My Pocket! and Fox in Socks.Adrian Edmondson narrated both Cat in the Hat stories for a HarperCollins audiobook that also includes Fox in Socks and Green Eggs and Ham.