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AUTHOR
The history of Beginner Books is littered with might-have-been titles. Some were nothing more than initial ideas. Others were nearly complete, illustrations and all, before being completely scrapped. Even more fell somewhere between those two extremes. The one commonality is that no one was immune from having an Beginner Book rejected, not authors who had established themselves elsewhere, not authors who had an excellent track record with Beginner Books, and not even Ted Geisel himself.
As a result, it seems like the world lost out on some tantalizing Beginner Books. Or did we? As Christopher Cerf says, “I don't think at any time, no matter how confident I felt about my own ability, I would have wanted to have an argument with Ted if he felt strongly that something wasn't good enough” (Interview with PVA, August 30, 2018).
As follows is a rundown of just a few of the lost Beginner Books.
The Beginner Book Diary (date unknown)
In the Seuss archives at UCSD there’s a listing for this book that includes a note regarding sketches by P.D. Eastman. It’s likely this was intended to be another collaboration between Phil and Ted, but perhaps their battles over The Beginner Book Dictionary killed the possibility.
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The Cat in the Hat Book of Verse (circa 1966)
The idea of a Beginner Book anthology of poetry had been around since 1961, but the first attempt was hampered by the series’ strict adherence to their word lists. When Helen and Ted had explored the idea of simplifying the language of the poems they wanted to use, they were justifiably denied permission.
They revived the idea a few years later seeking poems that were understandable to six-to-seven year olds, highly illustratable, did not contain archaic vocabulary, focused on humor and animals, had simple sentence structures, and were not already well-known. Two Random House employees were charged with this, and it’s no surprise they struggled. Walter Retan wrote to Bob Bernstein that it was “extremely difficult to find short poems that come within vocabulary limitations, have concepts simple enough for a first or second grader, and at the same time have any sort of literary merit” (Walter Retan to Bob Bernstein, March 9, 1965).
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Who’s a Clown? You’re a Clown! (circa 1966)
This was listed as a possible Theo LeSieg title for the fall 1966 Beginner Book list.
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The Cat in the Hat Story Book (circa 1968)
Also known as The Hat Cat’s Read-Aloud Hour, this was to be an anthology with fairy tales, fables, Bible stories, and selections from literature such as Macbeth, Tom Sawyer, and Gulliver’s Travels. The list of authors Ted wanted to include – including Hillaire Belloc, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, and Edward Lear – give some insight as to his influences (The Annotated Cat: Under the Hats of Seuss and His Cats. Random House: New York, 2007. p158).
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Al Perkins – Untitled American Indian folktale (circa 1968)
Al Perkins – Untitled dog story (circa 1968)
Al Perkins - Slim the Sleuth (circa 1966-1971)
Al was Ted’s go-to writer in the late 1960s, but a few of his ideas never made it to print. One was an original story written in the style of an American Indian folktale. Since it was an invented tale by a non-American Indian Random House didn’t think it would be appropriate to publish. There was a farcical story of a dog in a similar vein as The Digging-est Dog, but it was also rejected. Al – a lifelong doodler – even did some illustrations to go along with his manuscript. Slim the Sleuth - sounding like a recurring sketch on Sesame Street - was yet another unrealized Perkins project. This one is mentioned by title only in the UCSD Seuss archives.
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Roald Dahl and Tessa Dahl – Knock-Knocks (circa 1965)
Roald Dahl – The Fantastic Mr. Fox (circa 1970)
Roald Dahl was twice considered and twice rejected for Beginner Books. By 1965 he’d had two successes in a row, 1961’s James and the Giant Peach and 1964’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, both published by Knopf (his first novel for children – The Gremlins – had been published by Random House in 1948), but it seems he was looking to expand his reach. His first submission arrived in 1965, a collection of knock-knock jokes he wrote with his daughter Tessa (then 8 years old). Bob Bernstein sent it on to Ted and Helen remarking, “Frankly, these are not very good.” He added, “We could do a Beginner Book with Dahl maybe accepting some of these and getting him to work out others” (Bob Bernstein to Helen and Ted Geisel, January 14, 1965). But there’s no indication that the project went any further.
A few years later Dahl submitted a manuscript about a fox trying to outwit three farmers. Bob Bernstein sent it on to Michael Frith asking him to evaluate it as a Beginner Book. Michael says, “Well, I read it and said, ‘I don't have a hope in hell of making this into a Beginner Book,’ and I wrote back this rather lengthy critique where I carefully noted all the problems with this book and I sent it to Bernstein. And to my horror, he sent my notes to [Dahl]…apparently he went through the roof; he was furious that there was this punk kid criticizing his masterpiece” ( Interview with PVA, November 5, 2017). Michael thought it was a “wonderful book” but had no desire to work with the notoriously difficult Dahl to make the book into an early reader. The Fantastic Mr. Fox ended up published by Knopf in 1970, and is one of Dahl’s most beloved books.
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My Many Colored Days (circa 1973)
Ted’s ode to color and emotions was released posthumously in 1996 with paintings by Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson, but it was originally intended to be released as a Bright and Early Book in the mid-1970s. It appears that Ted always intended to bring in an outside illustrator and release the book as Theo LeSieg. In a 1973 letter he wrote that he envisioned the book having “beautiful illustrations and sensational color,” and that he would need to find “a great color artist who will not be dominated by me” (My Many Colored Days.” Suessville.com. http://www.seussville.com/books/book_detail.php?isbn=9780679875970).
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Joan Walsh Anglund - Untitled Project (circa 1979-1989)
There is very little information available, but it seems that Ted attempted to get author/illustrator Joan Walsh Anglud to create a Beginner Book. It’s hard to imagine Anglund’s cute greeting card-via-Precious Moments-style children cavorting through the logical insanity of a Beginner Book, which may explain why it never actually happened. There’s a chance their work became A Child’s Year, which was published as a Little Golden Book in 1992.
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Tish Rabe and Michael Letzig – Pigs of a Feather (1998)
An odd case. This book was based on a television show called The Crayon Box that aired in syndication from 1997 to 1998. The show itself was based on a book by Shane DeRolf and Michael Letzig called The Crayon Box that Talked, which was published by Random House in 1997. Pigs of a Feather was to focus on one of the characters called Piggy Banks.
Tish Rabe reports that she completed the manuscript (email to PVA, March 25, 2019) and was paid for it in September 1997. The book was assigned a ISBN and appears in database searches along with cover art and a synopsis that reads:
“A pig who thinks that he is a bird is discouraged when he tries unsuccessfully to fly, to sing, to build a nest, and to lay an egg, but he finds happiness when he recognizes his pigginess.”
But the book appears to have never actually been released. Tish says she never received a copy, and there are none listed for sale anywhere, nor are there any in libraries. What seems likely is that the cancellation of the show also led to the cancellation of the book. Tish says she also worked on a story featuring Crayon Box characters Lump (a dog) and Jack (a jack-in-the-box) that never saw the light of day.