Dr. Seuss's ABC

Category:Groiler Beginner Book Series
Category:Big Bright and Early Board Books
Category:Beginner Books Read-Along and Cassettes
Dr. Seuss's ABC, otherwise referred to as The ABC, is a 1963 English language alphabet book written by Dr. Seuss starring two anthropomorphic yellow dogs named Ichabod and Izzy as they journey through the alphabet and meet characters whose names begin with each letter. It was read as an audiobook by British comedian Rik Mayall as part of the 2000 audio release The Dr. Seuss Collection.
== Publication history ==
Dr. Seuss drew inspiration from memories of his mother, Nettie Geisel, who read stories to Ted and his sister, Marnie Geisel, at bedtime. He and Marnie also took piano lessons. Marnie practiced daily while he could be bribed with books. Whenever he did well, she took him to Johnson's Book Store and let him choose a book as a reward. Dr. Seuss's ABC was published as a Beginner Book in 1963, alongside Hop on Pop.
== The illustrations beginning with each letter ==
* A: Aunt Annie's alligator
* B: Barber, baby, bubbles, and a bumblebee
* C: Camel on the ceiling
* D: David Donald Doo dreams a dozen donuts and a duck dog
* E: Ear, egg, elephant
* F: Four fluffy feathers on a Fiffer-Feffer-Feff
* G: Goat, girl, goo-goo goggles
* H: Hungry horse, hay, hen in a hat, Hooray! Hooray!
* I: Ichabod is itchy
* J: Jerry Jordan's jelly jar and jam
* K: Kitten, kangaroo, kick a kettle, kite, and a king's kerchoo
* L: Little Lola Lopp, left leg, lazy lion licks a lollipop
* M: Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight
* N: Nine new neckties and a nightshirt and a nose
* O: Oscar's only ostrich oiled an orange owl today
* P: Painting pink pajamas, policeman in a pail, Peter Pepper's puppy, and now Papa's in the pail
* Q: The quick queen of Quincy and her quacking quackeroo
* R: Rosy Robin Ross riding on her red rhinoceros
* S: Silly Sammy Slick sipped six sodas and got sick, sick, sick
* T: Ten tired turtles on a tuttle-tuttle tree
* U: Uncle Ubb's umbrella and underwear
* V: Vera Violet Vinn is very, very, very awful on her violin
* W: Willy Waterloo is washing Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo
* X: Nixie Knox, ax, extra fox
* Y: A yawning yellow yak, young Yolanda Yorgensen yelling
* Z: Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz
== Adaptations ==
In the 1995 CD-ROM game by Living Books, Ichabod and Izzy appear on every page and they find out more things that also begin with each letter.
This book has an iOS and Android app by Oceanhouse Media.
An augmented reality app version of the book was created by Sugar Creative.
At The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum, The Readingville Exhibit houses The ABC Wall, an interactive larger-than-life wall version of Dr. Seuss's ABC, which allowed children to touch various letters, hear the phonetic sound of the letter being pressed, and see the artwork from the book appear on the wall with the associated text below.[10][11]
In Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, James N. Kirkpatrick, MD, director of the Echocardiography Laboratory at the UW Medical Center and associate professor of medicine, uses the letters E for Echocardiography, S for Sinister structural shortcomings, and C for Congestive heart failure from the book in ABCD's of Heart Failure: Echo-ing through the First Stage to outline the stages of heart failure, stating, "In his insightful and witty educational offering, Dr. Seuss’s ABC, Theodor Seuss Geisel 1 poses the intriguing rhetorical question “Big A, little a, what begins with A?” He might have answered, “An amalgamated assemblage of advancing ailments affecting the heart” (it works better if you consider the h to be silent.) Dr. Seuss contributed much to world literature but missed the opportunity to create a classification of cardiac conditions".
== Legacy ==
In the 2008 American animated film Horton Hears a Who!, yaks (which resembled the Yawning Yellow Yak, including Katie (voiced by Joey King), appear as residents of the Jungle of Nool.
== Trivia ==
* This book is released to Beginner Book Video as the first story in Dr. Seuss's ABC and 2 Other Stories.
* This book is released as a Bright & Early Board Book, with some changes and omitted pages.
** "What begins with..." is written for each letter.
** The X page on the board book version has things beginning with X: x-ray and xylophone.
** David Donald Doo, the Girl, the Kite, the King, Lola Lopp, Left Leg, Policeman, Peter Pepper's Puppy, Papa, Willy Waterloo, Nixie Knox, and the Fox are absent.
** Vera's violin is violet instead of brown.
** The word "hooray" is cut.
** Warren Wiggins is renamed Willy.
* Dr. Seuss originally planned the X page to be about sex, but he found it inappropriate for such beginner readers.
*In the web comic series Fluffernutters, Sarah is terrified of the book because of the Z page.
== Anniversary editions ==
* 60th Anniversary (2023): This edition features an updated cover.