Join the celebration in honor of the classic! The Cat in the Hat revolutionized the way we teach children to read and has captured our imaginations for 50 magnificent years. Celebrate the Cat's birthday and help support support literacy in your community. Click here to print out a birthday card that can be sent to the Cat in the Hat. For every card received, Random House Children's Books will donate one book to First Book, an nonprofit organization that has provided more than 40 million new books to children in need in hundreds of communities nationwide.

How did Dr. Seuss come to write The Cat in the Hat?

How long did it take him to write The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back?

Were these books instantly successful, or did their popularity build?

The answers to these questions and more can be found in this fascinating illustrated study of two books that changed the way our children learn how to read.

According to Professor Nel, The Cat in the Hat and its sequel operate on many levels. The books teach reading, but they also teach about poetry, politics, ethics, comics, history, and even conartistry! Complete with the text of both books, photographs, draft material, and essays by Seuss, The Annotated Cat is like a DVD with all the extras. Cat lovers everywhere can gain a deeper understanding of two of the most popular children's books ever written, and the remarkable man behind them.

"Philip Nel gives us a better grip on just why Dr. Seuss has so thoroughly captured the imaginations of several generations of readers — and the imaginations of their parents." Newsweek

Philip Nel is associate professor of English at Kansas State University. He is the author of Dr. Seuss: American Icon (2004), The Avant-Garde and American Postmodernity: Small Incisive Shocks (2002), and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Novels: A Reader's Guide (2001). At present, he is writing a biography of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss and, with Julia Mickenberg, co-editing a collection of radical children's literature. He lives in Kansas.