Dr. Seuss and the Cold War

This book has been one of Wild Thing's favorites for the last few days. It's been his favorite before, and I'm sure will come and go again, along with In the Night Kitchen, There's a Wocket in My Pocket, and the various other classics that litter the floor next to the rocker in his bedroom. Another current favorite is Fish for Breakfast, which is, sadly, out of print. The main hook for WT is that the major character, Tom the Cat, who is jonesin' for the aforementioned fish, responds to other offers of breakfast foods with the word "ugh." "Ugh" has not been part of WT's vocabulary until now, but he was quick to latch onto it, suggesting to me that the concept "ugh" was already there, waiting to find the right set of sounds to express itself. In any event, "ugh" is now the funniest sound ever produced in the English language, according to WT's lights. But I digress.

Reading The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, I've been struck by the weird Cold War imagery that suffuses the book. You know what I mean--the strange reddish stain that can't be expunged, that proliferates when you try to wipe it out, that only responds to a blast of some mysterious force called "voom," about which the only thing we know is that its source of power is too small to see. It might have been the favorite chidren's story of General Jack D. Ripper, for heaven's sake.

I was quite pleased with myself for noticing this, but I find this comment from the New Yorker from a few years ago: "The association with nuclear holocaust and its sterilizing fallout, wiping the planet clean of pinkness and pinkos, is impossible to ignore. It is a strange story for teaching people how to read." So, not so original after all. Still, it does seem a little odd. Surely this motif wasn't lost on anyone back in 1958? How did its first readers react to seeing a Seussian take on the Cold War?

Regardless, if anyone knows any good illustrators, please direct them to me; I need some help developing my new book project, Snuffles Makes a Dirty Bomb. Merci!