I hated that darn cat, but...

Random House is doing a promotion today: send a birthday card to the Cat in the Hat and Random House will donate a book to First Reads for each card sent. They say you can send more than one, so go for it. (If it will load for you--I'm having problems, but I have Stone Age software.)

While on the topic, MotherReader has written a fabulous hallucinogenic Ode to our favorite Good Doctor. She also directs us to a blog collecting our favorite Dr. Seuss lines, which I will have to get to later.

For my own tribute to Dr. Seuss today, I did a little research on something I've wondered about every since reading Happy Birthday to You. Was Dr. Seuss really writing a pro-life stance into his books? This interview with one of his biographers says vehemently, no:

Amanda Smith: And then, also, the anti-abortion lobby in the United States has used a line from Horton Hears a Who, the line that says, "A person's a person, no matter how small." Would that have been in accord with Seuss's intended meaning?


Philip Nel: Absolutely not. In fact, during his lifetime Seuss threatened to sue an anti-abortion group unless they took that off their stationery and they did take it off their stationery but it's still used. I've still seen propaganda in recent years from pro-life groups that have adopted Horton's line, "A person's a person, no matter how small." It's one of the ways in which Seuss has been misappropriated. He would not agree with that.