Seuss and co also required Beginner Books to be centered on concepts that were more fun and zanier than the stuff of Dick and Jane and its ilk. Phonics is founded on the premise that children can acquire language by learning phonemes-the sounds of language within certain letter combinations-and will then recognize those phonemes when reintroduced in other words. They did this by basing their books on phonics instead of rote memorization. So he, Phyllis Cerf, and his first wife, Helen Palmer Geisel, founded Beginner Books to combat the boredom (source) with a more playful take on beginners' books. Seuss found Dick and Jane books and their mode of teaching insanely boring on account of the fact that they are insanely boring. That is, children would read a word time and time and time and time… and time again until they figured out what it meant, how to pronounce it, and how to use it in a given context-assuming they care enough to continue reading afterward. These books centered on the belief that memorization was the end-all-be-all of acquiring language skills. Back in the pre-personal computer dark age we know as the 1950s, children books such as Dick and Jane were all the rage. Perhaps a little history is in order (don’t worry we’ll be brief). With this book, and others in the Beginner Books series, he made teaching while reading seem like a fine art.

But here's the thing: Seuss is that master at this. Granted, such a claim may not seem like a big deal today, and you could argue the same for any children’s book ever written. Phonics, reading skills, language acquisition, the foundation for a lifelong love of reading-take your pick.

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