“In the 50 years since The Cat in the Hat exploded onto the children’s book scene, Theodor Seuss Geisel—pen name “Dr. Seuss"—has become a central character in the American literary mythology, sharing the pantheon with the likes of Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald,” according to this US News story (The Birth of a Famous Feline). “The particular endurance of Cat, many critics say, is owed partly to its origins in an emerging philosophy of phonetic learning. Most of the 236 individual words in the book were taken from a list of beginner words for new readers, and only a few are more than one syllable.”
UPDATE: I’m not the only one who took note of this piece. D-Ed Reckoning says US News got it all wrong on the phonics thing.