premier artist of the American picture book, having produced I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.
more than forty since And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends! (5)
Street (1937). The most significant motif in his work, in plot, in With the help of Yuzz and Humpf and Thnad, he can spell
theme, and in illustration is the act of unfolding and expanding, Yuzz-a-ma-Tuzz and Humpf-Humpf-a-Dumpfer and Thnadner,
in geometric progression. In some stories this is purely physical. appealing fanciful animals that exist only in the fictive world of
Like the creation myths in which the earth is supported on the
this book. But even the new letters are not enough and the
back of a turtle on the back of another turtle, the king in Yertle book ends in another hallucinatory burst, with the most
the Turtle (1958) supports himself on a Babel-like tower of his elaborate letter of all, inviting the reader to start off yet another
subjects. As Bartholomew Cubbins takes off his hat (The 500 progression: "what do YOU think we should call this one,
Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, 1938), more and more are anyhow?" (54). This letter will give rise to another animal
revealed, at a frantic Sorcerer's Apprentice rate. Likewise in with the sound in its name, which will give rise to another
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (1958), each cat lifts his hat to letter, and so on. To return to McHale's distinction about
reveal a still smaller cat in a hat underneath.
ontology vs. epistemology, we easily see that with On Beyond
Sometimes this unfolding reveals a world that is usually Zebra, Seuss is calling into question the nature of an arbitrary
overlooked, like the tiny civilization of Whos in the dust speck alphabet. The narrator's invented letters are equally valid,
in Horton Hears a Who (1954), or the deep sea world imagined since they perform the tasks of letters and serve a function in
at the end of a fishing line in McElligot's Pool (1947). Finally it discourse.
may be the geometric unfolding of a developing concept. The Seuss is best when he is working under limitations, like the
Lora* asks what are the natural consequences of a single event alphabet; his Cat in the Hat series began the Beginner Books,
on the ecological balance, recalling the rhyme "For want of a nail, those with a vocabulary limited to a 300 basic word list.
the horse was lost." The worm in "The Big Brag" looks so far in However, in Seuss's more recent socially aware fables, The
the distance that his gaze goes all the way around the world and Lorax (1971) and The Butter Battle Boole ( 1984), in which he
he sees his two foolish companions bragging to one another. warns against ecological mismanagement and the nuclear arms
All this progression of unfolding bespeaks a rebellion against race, it is clear that he decries rigid patterns, like those in
the limits of imagination, or the limits the outside world would Gulliver's Travels, which force thinking in old patterns and
impose on imagination, which becomes important in Seuss's resist new solutions. If the world is to be saved, these books are
handling of the alphabet. He produced a lively but ordinary saying, it is only through leaps of the imagination. His current
example of the alphabet book in Dr. Seuss's ABC (1963). The picture book, You're Only Old Once/ (1986), looks like his
rhymes are clever and the names unlikely, but the book is previous ones, but it is about aging and written expressly for
conventional in form.
adults. Although Seuss's books still bear the appearance of
Big Q little q children's books, it is obvious that he is also addressing his
What begins with Q? adult audience, as well as breaking down our expectations
The quick about the easy categorizations of books.
Queen of Quincy Edward Gorey is as prolific as Dr. Seuss, but he made the
and her quacking quacker-oo (40) decision earlier in his career to switch to a purely adult
audience. Gorey's vision is a modern comic Gothic one, full of
Somehow, for Seuss though, the traditional alphabet is not tongue-twister names and neurotically minimalist plots. A
enough; there are not enough possibilities and its end unfolds
into new letters and new worlds. typical Gorey character, drawn in dark, gloomy pen and ink, is
The Cat in the Hat always brings unbridled mischief to his a long-nosed, onion-headed recluse, given to eccentricity,
Edwardian dress, and long fur coats. He inhabits a Gothic
unwilling hosts, a boy and girl, with disastrous consequences. mansion and is often seen staring in the distance, in search of
In The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (1958), the children are
dutifully shovelling mountains of snow when the Cat lets some nagging task or fact he has forgotten.
himself in and begins eating cake in the bathtub. This leaves a Gorey has also of course illustrated books which are clearly
pink cat stain around the tub, which is cleaned up with and for a younger audience, such as John Ciardi's You Read to Me,
I'll Read to You (1962), Edward Lear's The Dong with the
transferred to a progression of inappropriate objects, like the
mother's white dress, the father's $10 shoes, and the carpet. Luminous Nose ( 1969), and Why We Have Day and Night ( 1970)
Finally the Cat in the Hat calls out from under his hat Little Cat with Peter F. Neumeyer. Particularly successful are several sets
A, who calls out Little Cat B, and so on, to help with the of books about creative but misunderstood little boys, Donald
and the ... (1969) and Donald Has a Difficulty (1971) with
cleaning. The tell-tale spot grows in intensity until it covers the Peter F. Neumeyer, and Florence P. Heide s Treehorn's Treasure
surrounding snow and is worse than ever. Having worked
down to Little Cat Z with no success, the final weapon is called (1981) and The Shrinking o/Treehorn (1971), the last of which
won several honors for children's books.
for, the mysterious "Voom," beyond Z, which arrives in a
His macabre approach and gloomy pictures, however, make
hallucinatory burst and does its work unseen. It's as though a it clear that while Gorey is using the appearance of children's
sound barrier has been passed which can never be replaced.
Clearly it is a convention its author is not sorry to see fall. books he is actually satirizing the genre. For instance, The
Seuss's greatest anti-alphabet is, of course, On Beyond Zebra Hapless Child (1961) begins like a Victorian story of a lost but
(1955) in which the narrator explores a whole new set of letters, resolute girl. The small wan Charlotte Sophia, a Little Dorrit,
lives with rich and loving parents. When her father disappears
needed to spell the creatures he sees in his imagination. in Africa, her mother declines and dies; Charlotte Sophia runs
In the places I go there are things that I see away from an oppressive boarding school, is kidnapped, sold to
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z. a drunk and forced to work in a damp, ill-lit basement. When
articles 117
at last her father returns and searches for her, the nearly blind and buyers of children's books. Rather, the alphabet book for
girl is struck and killed by his car: "She was so changed, he did all readers shares in our changing sense of fiction and our
not recognize her" (30). This explosion of expectations, taking fictional place in our world. As a picture book, the illustrated
off visually on Dickens, Jane Eyre, and "The Little Match-Girl," alphabet in our times has reflected the ambivalence of those
is comical, with somber drawings and terrible details. Charlotte who write children's books. The definition of this genre and its
Sophia is brutalized by her classmates, who pull her doll apart, audience is blurring, a limitation, like the 26 letters, to be
and by her captor, who frequently gets delirium tremens. It is played with, strained, and stretched.
of course an exaggerated and extreme case, making fun of
happy endings. WORKS CITED
Likewise Gorey has made a specialty of the alphabet, pro- Azarian, Mary. A Farmer's Alphabet. Boston: David R. Godine,
ducing what are definitely anti-alphabets, including The Utter 1981.
Zoo (1967), The Chinese ObelisL (1972), and The Glorious
Nosebleed (1974). The ironic and gruesome vision presented in Barth, John. "The Literature of Exhaustion." Atlantic 220
these books is clearly for an adult audience, which presumably (August 1967): 29-36.
doesn't need to learn the alphabet. The tiny pictures in The Caravan Books. An Alphabet Book Collection. Stillwater,
Eclectic Abecedarium (1962) sound cautionary as well as Oklahoma: Caravan Books, 1985.
irrelevant.
Charlip, Remy and Jerry Joyner. Thirteen. New York: Parents
(I) Be loath to drink Magazine Press, 1975.
Indian Ink.
Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. New York: Random
0) Don't try to cram House, 1958.
The dog with Jam. (9-10)
________Dr. Seuss's ABC. New York: Random House, 1963.
The next to last entry is a self-referential complaint about the
form itself. ________On Beyond Zebra. New York: Random House, 1955.
The letter X Gorey, Edward. The Hapless Child. New York: Ivan Obolensky,
Was made to vex. (24) 1961.
Here he has taken from the alphabet its power and function as ________The Eclectic Abecedarium. New York: Admama, 1962.
the raw material of writing, and reduced it to an artificial and ________The Gashlycrumb Tinies. New York: Dodd, Mead,
troublesome pattern for alphabet book makers. He has likewise 1962.
stressed the intertextuality of this book, linking its subject not
to letters but to the fictional world of alphabet books. Graff, Gerald. Literature Against Itself: Literary Ideas in Modern
His most notorious alphabet, however, is The Gashlycrumb Society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Tinies (1963) which recounts the various methods of demise of McHaIe, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. New York: Methuen,
twenty-six children, in rhymed order: 1987.
A is for AMY who fell down the stairs
Menaker, Daniel. "Lletters for Yyoungsters." New York Times
B is for BASIL assaulted by bears Review of Books, Nov. 9, 1986. 39.
C is for CLARA who wasted away
D is for DESMOND thrown out of a sleigh ( 1-4) Musgrove, Margaret. Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions. New
York: Dial, 1977. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon.
When Gorey's children are victims, they are drawn tiny against
large stairs and rooms, dwarfed by menacing adults and Norton, Donna E. Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction
creatures. The source of the humor here is the Victorian to Children's Literature. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill
settings, the antiquated names (Titus, Yorick, Neville), and the Publishing, 1983.
absurd deaths (wasting away, dying of ennui). Yet this is no Rose, Jacqueline. The Case of Peter Pan or The Impossibility of
book for children. Rather, it is a revenge against those who Children's Fiction. London: MacMillan, 1984.
would take an alphabet book seriously, a sarcastic rebellion
against a view of childhood that is sunny, idyllic, and instructive. Sendak, Maurice. Alligators All Around. New York: Harper and
In the world of post-modernist literature, letters have often Row, 1962.
stood for an artificial mechanism for producing fiction, as in Whalley, Joyce Irene. Cobwebs to Catch Flies: Illustrated Books for
John Barth's LETTERS and Walter Abish's Alphabetical Africa the Nursery and Schoolroom 1700-1900. Berkeley, California:
(discussed in McHaIe 159). In those works discussed in this University of California Press, 1975.
paper, the evidence of post-modernist techniques does not
indicate that Seuss, Gorey, and others are merely trying to George Bodmer teaches English at Indiana University Northwest.
reach an adult audience, since adults have always been readers