His Most Famous Book Was Based on a Bet
In 1960, “ Green Eggs and Ham ” was created after Dr. Seuss’s publisher, Bennett Cerf, bet him that he couldn’t write a book in 50 words or less. The result of that? His best-selling and fan favorite story that involves some questionable breakfast choices.
Source: Amazon
“ The Cat in the Hat ” was written before that and it was pretty simple; it used 225 words. Geisel, who isn’t one to back down from a challenge, started writing and came up with “ Green Eggs and Ham .” And he used exactly 50 words.
Those 50 words: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.