Cat People : The New Yorker

Cat People : The New Yorker: A hundred Beginner Books were eventually published. One was “Green Eggs and Ham,” in 1960. Bennett Cerf had bet Geisel fifty dollars that he could not write a book using just fifty words. Geisel won the bet. Forty-nine of the words in “Green Eggs and Ham” are one-syllable words. (The fiftieth, of course, is “anywhere.”) Cerf didn’t come out too badly, though. “Green Eggs and Ham” was the most successful book Dr. Seuss ever wrote. It is the fourth best-selling children’s hardcover title of all time. (The No. 1 best-seller is Janette Lowrey’s 1942 blockbuster, “The Pokey Little Puppy.”)