DR SEUSS, YOU SILLY GOOSE...

The Cat in the Hat (Joanna Daneman, amazon.com, September 21st, 2004)

The Cat in the Hat has no other name--symbolic of his role as Chaos. He comes to visit two children, the predictable (as in "orderly") Boy and Girl at home. Inexplicably, the parents have left these two underaged children at home with no babysitter and no good sense to refuse entry to a patently dangerous beast who has regrettable taste in headgear. This is significant; despite the fact Mom And Dad represent Order in the equation, they introduce Chaos into the system by abandoning their kids. From that small oversight, the rest of the chaotic events unfold with Greek-tragedy-like inevitability, though with an unpredictable outcome. How like the universe this is; the stars in their courses, but the weather is utter madness.

The Cat roams rampant through the suburban home, pretty much doing what you and I and these two kids would LOVE to do but wouldn't dare--everything Mom and Dad tell you "not to." In psychological terms, the Cat is fulfilling the deepest desires of the children--to be really, really BAD, but without any consequences whatsoever. It's alluring, giddy, intoxicating, and it's SCARY, too. Disorder, like a roller-coaster ride, runs frighteningly and ultimately, downhill.

Just before the authoritarian ORDER figure Mom (much more symbolic of order than Dad--this IS the Fifties and you can bet she does all the housework) anyway, Mom's reappearance is imminent and the Cat uses an unlikely device to vacuum up the mess and restore all as it was--in essence reversing entropy. This is accomplished effortlessly and with no visible source of power. Here is a golden opportunity to discuss the Second Law of Thermodynamics (The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is also known as entropy--or disorder) with your kids. A good exercise would be to try to calculate the energy that would have been required to run such a device. Question: would the device the Cat uses to clean the mess be able to run off a car battery, or would it require, oh, say, a fast breeder reactor the size of Yokohama? You do the math.

This endurable children's classic is essential to teaching the young about responsibility, temptation, thermodynamics and chaos theory. You can't begin too early.

So it’s not just that he turns out to be conservative. He’s also the perfect training for a lifetime shut in the house contributing to BrothersJudd.