And it’s alleged Marvin
K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! is based on Richard Nixon
and Watergate.
7.
Yertle the Turtle =
Hitler? Yep. If you haven’t read the story, here’s a little overview: Yertle is
the king of the pond, but he wants more. He demands that other turtles stack
themselves up so he can sit on top of them to survey the land. Mack, the turtle
at the bottom, is exhausted. He asks Yertle for a rest; Yertle ignores him and
demands more turtles for a better view. Eventually, Yertle notices the moon and is furious that anything dare be
higher than himself, and is about ready to call for more turtles when Mack
burps. This sudden movement topples the whole stack, sends Yertle flying into
the mud, and frees the rest of the turtles from their stacking duty. Dr. Seuss
actually said Yertle was a representation of Hitler. Despite the political
nature of the book, none of that was disputed at Random House – what was
disputed was Mack’s burp. No one had ever let a burp loose in a children’s book
before, so it was a little dicey. In the end, obviously, Mack burped.
5. Green Eggs and Ham.
Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’ editor, bet him that he couldn’t write a book using 50
words or less. The Cat in the
Hat was pretty simple, after all, and it used 225 words. Not one to
back down from a challenge, Mr. Geisel started writing and came up with Green Eggs and Ham – which
uses exactly 50 words. The 50 words, by the way, are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box,
car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I,
if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank,
that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.
9. Oh The Places
You’ll Go is Dr. Seuss’ final book, published in 1990. It sells about
300,000 copies every year because so many people give it to college and high
school grads.
Thanks to Mental Floss for revealing the funky stuff that
surrounded Dr. Seuss’s stories. Read the full list here.
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