Okay, technically, the Cat in the Hat has been at our house for years. In fact as I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve owned him and many other Seuss books since I was in university but now that Reid has the attention span to listen to these long stories, it’s like a long-lost friend has come to visit. Thing 1 and Thing 2 came out at bedtime on Tuesday and the Little Cats A through Z came out when the Cat in the Hat Comes Back came out on Wednesday night. I love Dr Seuss! (In case you hadn’t guessed.) I remember reading Dr Seuss books to the nieces and nephews, in particular I remember being able to recite Marvin K. Mooney Would You Please Go Now! to Brianna when I babysat her. I can’t remember if it was her favourite book or mine. I wonder if she’ll smile when she reads this or have nightmares.

I don’t know if you realized that March 2nd was the 50th anniversary of the publishing of The Cat and the Hat or that the book has only 236 words, many of which are repeated. I didn’t know these details until I read a post on a blog about it. One fact that struck me was their stat that in middle class homes, a child will have 13 books of their own while in a lower-class neighbourhood there will be 300 children for every one book. Now, I am suspicious of stats, especially given how many kids books we own (which is, admittedly, well over any average) but I have heard Melissa speak of reading to four year-olds at her kids’ school that don’t know that in most books the words run along the bottom and the pictures go above and so can’t orient the books properly for her to read to them. She lives in a middle class neighbourhood in a well-off city. It brings tears to my eyes to think of kids without books.Even if I am a bit melodramatic, it is still a terrible thing to have happening in our country. ABC CANADA Literacy Foundation has a “Ways to help” ([1] http://www.abc-canada.org/sponsorship/) program which includes shopping with a rebate and direct donations if you’re so inclined.

Have a great day. And read a kid a book this weekend - if not yours, someone elses ;+)