April 27, 2011 2:43 PM
The bet behind “Green Eggs and Ham”
Posted by Kate Rinsema
The works of Dr. Seuss are known for their generous usage of nonsense words and flowery phrasing, so it may come as a surprise that he used very few unique words in some of his most famous books.
“Bennett Cerf was the co-founder of Random House. As part of his duties as publisher, he also had an envious job — he was Dr. Seuss’ editor. And on March 12, 1957, Random House published Dr. Seuss’ masterpiece, The Cat and the Hat. At 65 pages, the book is notable not only because of its well-deserved fame, but also because Dr. Seuss used only 225 unique words in writing it. Cerf was impressed — so much so that he challenged Seuss to do one better. He wagered that Seuss could not author a book — a meaningful one — using fifty unique words or fewer.”
The rest is history, as the result turned out to be the fourth best-selling children’s book of all time, “Green Eggs and Ham.”
Full story at Now I Know via Bits and Pieces.
Classic children’s literature.