When the Loser Wins…Again!

Ted was talking to his boss.  The two disagreed about their abilities.  In fact, the topic of discussion was something Ted’s supervisor believed was impossible.  He insisted that nobody could do it.

Ted bet him that he could and set out to prove it.

He lost.

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Ted was a quiet kid.  He mostly kept to himself.  Being of German descent during the time of the first world war was not something to make one popular among the other children so he spent much of this time reading or walking around in the nearby Springfield, Massachusetts zoo.

He really liked looking at the animals living in the zoo so he started taking a pad of paper and a pencil when he visited and drawing the zoo’s inhabitants.

He got pretty good at it.

After graduating from high school Ted attended Dartmouth College.  There he pursued his love of the written word by signing on to write for the college’s humor magazine, Jack-O-Lantern.

Like many if not most college kids, he tested limits and rebelled against authority.  He and some friends were caught drinking on campus.  Although his rebellion might be relatively minor by today’s standards, his offence took place during prohibition and resulted in his being “asked” to stop all of his extra-curricular activities, which included working for Jack-O-Lantern.

Ted just couldn’t stand the idea of giving up his love of working for the magazine, so he had his name taken off the list of contributors.  However, he continued writing, but he started submitting under his middle name (which was also his mother’s maiden name) and a made up title.

Yes, Ted did indeed love writing.  After leaving college, Ted started a career as an illustrator and cartoonist for various magazines and as an illustrator of advertisements.

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During that period of his life he had an idea while on a ship traveling back to the United States with his wife.  He remembered walking through Springfield as a boy and thought of the wonderful things he’d imagined but which never actually happened.  The thrum of the ship’s engine’s motivated the rhythm of the book and he couldn’t wait to write it.

That was the easy part.

After completing his first book Ted started contacting publishers.  No one seemed interested in the adventures of that boy on a city street.  Ted submitted to more than 20 publishers and was turned down by every one.

Then something exciting actually did happen during a walk down the street.  Ted was walking down Madison Avenue, resenting the fact that no publisher had shown interest.  They had given various reasons for their rejections, saying such things as that fantasy books didn’t sell and that the book didn’t present a clear moral message.  Ted had even complained to his wife, “What’s wrong with kids having fun reading without being preached at?”

Without trying to discourage her husband, she tried to help Ted see things from the publishers’ point of view.  She said that the book might seem to the publishers to encourage daydreaming and lying to one’s parents.

Ted was mulling over his difficulties as he walked along the sidewalk.  He so frustrated that he had decided to burn the manuscript when he got home.  It was about that time that he ran into an old college classmate.  It so happened that the old friend, Mike McClintock, was by then working as a juvenile editor at Vanguard Press.

Long story short Vanguard Press decided to publish Ted’s book.  In 1937, at the age of 33, Ted was a published author.

Sales of his first book were modest but that didn’t dampen Ted’s enthusiasm for creating books for young readers.  He continued trying and enjoyed mixed success.

Theodore Seuss Geisel under the name Dr. Seuss was on his way.

But what bet did he lose?

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On May 24, 1954 Life magazine published an article on the problems with grade school children learning to read.  Writer John Hersey said, “In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children… All feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls…. In bookstores anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave.”

The article talked about the boring illustrations, and even mentioned Ted by name, saying, “Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate—drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, “Dr. Seuss”, Walt Disney?”

William Spaulding, Houghton Mifflin’s director of their education division was inspired by the article.  He and Ted had met during WWII and they were still friends.  He called Dr. Seuss and invited him to dinner.

That evening Spaulding explained that, besides Hersey’s article, he had read the book Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolf Flesch.  It too was critical of the old “Dick and Jane” primers that many of us were taught with.

Ted was interested.

Spaulding pointed out that, in Why Johnny Can’t Read, Rudolph Flesch had included several lists of words that young children should be able to read.  Spaulding even gave Ted a similar list and suggested that he write a book “for six- and seven-year-olds who had already mastered the basic mechanics of reading” and said, “Write me a story that first-graders can’t put down!”

Here comes the bet.

Spaulding had assembled his own list of 348 words that he felt every six-year-old should know.  He gave it to Dr. Seuss and challenged him to use no more than 225 of them.

Ted took the bet and the list.  For the next year and a half he studied the list and just couldn’t come up with anything.  An idea slowly began to form.

He imagined two siblings stuck at home on a rainy day.  How could they entertain themselves?  Why, use their imagination, that’s how.  But what if their imagined ideas became real?

Now he had an idea, but he still had to work within the agreed upon word list.  He finally decided to just make up a name from the list and create his story from there.

The first two words he found that rhymed were cat and hat.

Yep, The Cat in the Hat was published in 1957 by Houghton Mifflin.  It contained 236 words, 11 over the agreed upon 225.  Dr. Seuss had lost the bet.

Of course, Dr. Seuss made money from the book’s sales, and Houghton Mifflin made money, and children gained a much-beloved author and began to read and enjoy it.

So, maybe Seuss lost the bet but, really, didn’t everybody win?

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One might think that Ted would have learned his lesson about writing books with a limited number of words, but no.  Bennett Cerf, famous writer and actor of the time, challenged Ted to write a book using only 50 words.

Can’t be done, you say?  Go back and read Dr. Seuss’s book, Green Eggs and Ham.  It contains 50 different words, exactly.

Yeah, he won that bet…and so did we.

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