Does this picture not crack you up? PLEASE tell me I’m not the only one who finds this totally hilarious. (From Publishers Daily). These are Random House employees who celebrated The Cat in the Hat’s 50th birthday at a companywide meeting last week. I really would like to have one of those hats!

The Cat in the Hat was released on March 1, 1957. I found this article from USA Today full of interesting tidbits:

• “The Cat in the Hat was a product of the postwar baby boom. In 1957, 29 million children were in kindergarten and elementary school.
• “Geisel was asked to use only 223 words from a list of 348 words for beginning readers. He ended up using 236.”
• “Geisel thought he could write the book in a week, but it took him a year and a half.”

A year and a half to write a 236-word book! Now that’s INSPIRING!