Cat In The Hat Hats

If he were with us today, Dr. Seuss would be 108 years old!  Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!!!

Today, I'm planning to write about his most famous character - The Cat In The Hat - but first, let's talk about his creator for a few moments.  (Note: Most of the following information can be found at the official Dr. Seuss website, here: http://www.seussville.com/.)  Dr. Seuss - born Theodore Geisel - came into the world on March 2, 1904.  He remained Ted Geisel until college, until he got into some trouble.  Having been banned from writing and drawing cartoons for the school paper and magazines, he started using his mother's maiden name, though with a different pronunciation - "Seuss".

After cartooning for quite a bit, and writing and drawing for advertisements, Dr. Seuss started writing books for kids in 1937 (To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street was the first one).  All in all, he wrote and illustrated 44 books for children.  The Cat In The Hat was his 13th book, first seen in 1957.  To this day, The Cat remains the author's most recognizable character, and some even say that The Cat was a metaphor for Seuss himself.  Let's get to The Cat now. 

The Cat In The Hat is a story that focuses on a boring, wet, dull day - "The sun did not shine.  It was too wet to play."  There was nothing to do... blah.  But then The Cat shows up (despite loud protests from The Fish), and the boredom vanishes.  His "look what I can do!" attitude is both entertaining and scary (what if they get caught?!), and even cleaning up the playthings becomes fun with The Cat around.  (But will it get done by the time that Mother gets home?)

For this story, I just had to make The Cat's iconic Hat.  I tried to make it both delicious and not horribly unhealthy.  I think it came out pretty well... what do you think?

Cat In The Hat Hats
Strawberries
Bananas
Vanilla wafers

1. Cut a banana into rounds.
2. Cut a strawberry into rounds.  For this, I tried to choose strawberries that look like they do in drawings, instead of the giant 3- and 4-lobed ones that you sometimes get in the cartons. 
3. Stack one banana slice onto a strawberry slice and cut them in half.  Repeat until you have the desired amount of fruit slices.
4. Break one vanilla wafer in half.  On a plate, lay down a vanilla wafer half so that it stands straight up.  On one side of it, place the half-moon slices you made of banana and strawberry to make the stripes, and you have yourself a hat!  Repeat as necessary to make as many hats as you like.

I also tried this in 3D, placing whole slices on top of a wafer to make hats, but I prefer the laying-down version.  Here's a photo of those type of hats, though:

You may do with it as you will.  But whatever you do, don't ever stop celebrating Dr. Seuss.  You won't be alone - his birthday is now the official day for the NEA's Read Across America Program.

I can't decide which Seuss story is my favorite.  It's either Horton Hatches An Egg, or The Sneeches.  What's your favorite?