Such moments can peel away the years and instantly connect us back to our childhood, a time when egos were eclipsed by the sheer joy of having pushed ourselves forward. One can almost hear the echoes of our past voices shouting, “Look at me! Look at me now!”
So too was it for Ted Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, upon writing The Cat in The Hat. The year was 1955 and Ted was challenged by his publisher to write a book using only 225 primer words. The hope was to empower early readers to go it alone, to do the unthinkable and read an entire book without assistance. The limited vocabulary proved a nearly impossible challenge for Ted, stating “I read the list forty times and got more and more discouraged. It was like trying to make a strudel without any strudels."