The late Dr Seuss, the world’s best-selling children’s book author, has delighted young children and helped them to read for over 50 years. With his hypnotic rhythms and zany rhymes, The Cat in the Hat and other subsequent stories were the first to be fun to read aloud and impossible to put down.

March 2007 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Cat in the Hat and to mark the celebration, children from around the world will all be reading the same book at the same time. In Malta, a number of schools will also be holding read-aloud sessions of Dr Seuss titles throughout March. Some of the schools organising read-aloud sessions include Verdala International School, Chiswick House School and St Edwards College. These sessions will promote literacy and will encourage young pupils to adopt a fun approach to reading.

During the 1950s, it was claimed that children were not interested in reading because their reading books were boring and mundane. In 1957, Ted Seuss Geisel, known as Dr Seuss, was asked to write “a story that first-graders can’t put down”. He was given a list of 236 words drawn by three literacy experts to use in his story. These were simple vocabulary words which first grade pupils would normally know. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957, which instantly changed the way children learnt to read. Seuss wrote and illustrated 44 books and The Cat in the Hat is the most popular of Seuss’s book characters. It sold over 10 million copies worldwide and is still enticing and inspiring children all over the world into learning how to read.

To celebrate the Cat’s half-century, HarperCollins published an extensive range of Dr Seuss titles from cloth nursery books to a collector’s library.

Agenda Bookshop will have a range of Dr Seuss books in stock within the coming week. The outlets of Agenda Bookshop are located at the Valletta Waterfront, the Embassy Shopping Complex in Valletta, the Plaza Shopping Complex in Sliema, Pavi Supermarket in Qormi, Topline in St Andrews, in Bugibba and at Malta International Airport.

For more information about holding read-aloud session in your school contact Alison Borg at [email protected].