The Cat in the Hat full rein to their destructive impulses without guilt or consequences." For a 1983 article, Geisel told Jonathan Cott, ""The Cat in the Hat" is a revolt against authority, but it's ameliorated by the fact that the Cat cleans up everything at the end. It's revolutionary in that it goes as far as Kerensky and then stops. It doesn't go quite as far as Lenin." Donald Pease notes that "The Cat in the Hat" shares some structural similarities with other Dr. Seuss books. Like earlier books, "The Cat in the Hat" starts with "a child's feeling of discontent with his mundane
The Cat in the Hat there were a lot of Dick and Jane devotees, and my book was considered too fresh and irreverent. But Bennett Cerf at Random House had asked for trade rights, and it just took off in the bookstores." Geisel told the Morgans, "Parents understood better than school people the necessity for this kind of reader." After three years in print, "The Cat in the Hat" had sold nearly one million copies. By then, the book had been translated into French, Chinese, Swedish, and Braille. In 2001, "Publishers Weekly" placed it at number nine on its list of the best-selling children's books